


tangled thread inside his head

by muppetstiefel



Series: roots [1]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Depression, Dustin Henderson Is the Best, Eating Disorders, F/M, Halloween, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Loner Will Byers, Lucas Is Student President, Lucas Sinclair Is a Good Friend, M/M, Max is a Stoner, Maxine "Max" Mayfield is a Good Friend, Misunderstandings, New Kid El, Sad Will Byers, Teen Angst, Underage Drinking, Will Byers & Maxine "Max" Mayfield Friendship, Will Just Has Serious Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-07-20 13:13:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 33,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19992793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muppetstiefel/pseuds/muppetstiefel
Summary: "It’s bullshit, Will thinks. Senior year doesn’t look good. Not even in the movies."All Will Byers has to do is get through the final year of high school without anything changing. All anyone else wants to do is fix everything that happened all those years before.A story about change and healing and an illegal candy store.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just a note before reading!!
> 
> This takes place in an alternate universe where the events of Stranger Things never happened. All the kids are just your average high schoolers without any sort of supernatural intervention.
> 
> Also please be aware that there is reference to self harm and depression, so be careful if that could be potentially triggering!!

Senior year isn’t how it looks in the movies.

That’s what Jonathan tells him, hovering outside the bathroom as Will scrubs at his teeth sleepily. It’s bullshit, Will thinks. Senior year doesn’t look good. Not even in the movies.

But he spits into the sink and nods. It makes Jonathan smile. A strained smile that doesn’t quite meet his eyes. Will echoes it with his own face.

When summer had first stretched in front of them, it had felt like an eternity. An expense of time and heat, slowly dragging itself forward. Even with the countless trips back and forwards between his dads, and helping his mom in the shop and even cleaning out the loft, it had felt limitless. Will hated that feeling.

But now as he shoves fresh notebooks into last year’s rucksack, he realises summer wasn’t long enough to stop senior year. Just long enough to delay it.

Will scrubs at his eyes with the backs of his hands. Stretches. Feels his shirt pull at the seams with the strain.

He finds his mom in the kitchen. She’s reading a paper, eyes flicking restlessly between the broadsheet and the hallway through which Will appears. She looks uncomfortable. When Will appears she stands up, a smile cracking her features.

Will doesn’t even try to return it. Just grabs the carton of milk left on the side and returns it to its home.

She’s talking before Will can stop her. A garbled stream of “have you got your books?” and “what’s your first class?” and “do you need a lift?” Will answers them all with a shrug.

His mom sighs. When her shoulders sag like that she looks like she’s melting, Will thinks to himself. Like ice. Fragile and melting.

“Will,” she says his name like a cry for help. He shoves a slice of bread in his mouth so he doesn’t have to answer. “You promised me you were gonna try this year.”

Will feels like he’s going to heave. Instead he swallows the bread. “I always try in school, mom,” his voice is scratchy. He hasn’t spoken for days, he realises numbly. He’s been too busy trying to single-handedly beat Commando.

She sighs again. Sags again. “You know I don’t mean school.” She grabs for the empty glass on the table and shoves it on the draining board. If Will had tried that he would’ve cracked it.

He keeps his eyes trained on the glass, so he doesn’t have to look at his mom. He already feels like shit every waking moment. He doesn’t need the guilt of making her feel shitty too.

“You don’t know what could happen… Just try it, okay? Try the whole 'making friends and having fun' side of life. If you won’t do it for yourself, at least do it for me?” Her eyes burn into the side of his head. She’s holding her car keys, and if she doesn’t leave soon she’ll be late for work.

And just to stop her getting fired, Will meets her eyes and nods.

She presses a kiss to the side of his head as she leaves, and it almost eases some of the shadows that hang across the first day.

Not quite.

* * *

He cycles to school.

Jonathan had offered him a lift on his way to work, but Will wasn’t even ready yet and he’ll feel even shittier if he makes his brother late.

So he had waived him off and slinked back upstairs to bury his head under his pillow for five more minutes.

First days are always the worst, Will thinks as he pedals down a particularly sloped hill that seems to carve into the core of the earth. But first days are worse when it’s a Bad Day too. His head feels like it’s splitting in two by the time he reaches the stretch of the high school. His hands are shaking too badly to do the bike lock so he just leaves it, discarded on the floor. He had a coffee before he left, and now he realises that wasn’t the smartest plan when all he really wants to do is go to sleep and never wake up.

It’s unfortunate, really, that he sees him there.

After three years of high school, Will has a perfect routine, that allows him to avoid the other boy with almost genius precision.

But he’s stopped to tie his shoelace when the car pulls into its regular parking spot. And Will can’t help but watching as he steps out.

Mike Wheeler really never changed much over the years. He’s been stretched out, sure, and he’s grown into the features that earned him the name of ‘frog face’, but aside from that he never seemed to change. His clothes have always been plain, unassuming. He’s kept the same haircut for the three years of high school, and he doesn’t seem to have changed as he enters the fourth. It’s too long, Will had always thought. It hides his eyes too much.

Mike doesn’t see him, because Will is good at making himself invisible. Instead Mike keeps his eyes on locking his car and searching around in his backpack.

And Will- Will makes his getaway.

It’s the first day of senior year and Will curses himself for already messing up the perfectly balanced routine. He shoves his bag into his locker, a mixture of pride and disappointment swelling in his stomach.

Proud because Mike didn’t notice him.

Disappointed because Mike didn’t notice him.

He’s heading to first period when he’s stopped by someone yelling “Byers!” across the hallway. He stops and pivots slightly, coming face to face with a breathless but grinning Lucas Sinclair.

Lucas Sinclair. The boy who used to test out Will’s dodgy rockets. Go with him on family camping trips. Share his sleeping bag.

They’re not friends, not really. Not since middle school. But still, Lucas always talks to Will between classes and invites him to every party he throws. Not that Will ever goes.

The thing is, people like Lucas. He’s cool enough, and he’s funny, and he runs the student council. He has had a girlfriend for all of high school and they fit together so well.

People don’t like Will. They avoid him like the plague. They used to bully him. Now they just ignore him. Will isn’t sure which is worse.

But Lucas always talks to Will, and Will doesn’t have the energy to tell him that its social suicide, so he talks back. 

“Hey,” he returns, trying hard to meet Lucas’ eye.

Lucas is grinning, despite the fact that it’s _Monday_ and its _high school_ and he’s talking to _Freaky Will Byers._ “How you doing? How was your summer, dude?”

Will shrugs. Noncommittal.

Lucas perseveres. “I was just wondering if we had any classes together. Max is a literal science genius and she’s the other side to me, and I remembered that you used to love the more artsy stuff, so I was just… curious I guess.”

Will shakes his head. He doesn’t need to know what classes Lucas has, because he’s not in them. Lucas is in all AP, because he actually studies. He actually cares. And Will doesn’t, so he’s rotting in the middle sets, doodling all over his test paper. That’s what his dad had said, anyway, over the phone to his mom.

His interaction with Lucas ends with a hurried “see you later, Byers” and the other boy disappearing into the digesting crowd of students.

Will doesn’t say anything return. Just pushes his way to his first class.

* * *

Jonathan was right, in a way, Will thinks. Senior year isn’t like it is the movies. It’s boring, and grey and slow. Just like the rest of high school.

His first two classes are fine. Mundane and the same as the year before, but fine. Will actually manages to stay awake. Actually manages to pay attention. Doesn’t drive his compass into his forearm in an effort to stay present.

Max is in his English. She’s the complete opposite of Lucas. Her hair stands out against the whitewash of Hawkins, as does her colourful vocabulary and her mismatched wardrobe. It’s common knowledge that she’s a self-proclaimed stoner, which just makes her dating the school’s poster boy even funnier. But they fit each other. A mirrored duo.

For all Lucas had said about her being a genius, Max seems to still struggle with basic conjunctions. She smiles at Will when she comes in, a small smile that doesn’t extend to a gesture of friendship. Back in middle school that would’ve made his chest ache. Now he feels nothing.

Max had moved to Hawkins after it had all happened, and she had hurt Will. Later, he had realised he had done all the hurting himself.

The first class they had together – biology, if he can recall right – she had talked to him and passed him a crumpled note. The next day, she had sat as far away from him as her seat would allow. He had seen her that lunch, talking and laughing with Mike and Lucas. A week after she had her tongue down the latter’s throat.

Will had cried for days and days. Now, he just smiles back and then tries to forget she’s even in the room.

He doesn’t have any classes with Mike. Because Mike is clever, always has been, and he’s into sports now. When Will first saw him running track, it’d had felt like a punch in the chest. A reminder that Will doesn’t know him anymore. That he’s not allowed that privileged look into Mike Wheeler’s mind he had once had.

At lunch he avoids the cafeteria. It’s a swarming pit of hell. He had realised that quite quickly. In fact, he can count on his hand the number of times he’s eaten in that hell hole. He tells himself it’s because it’s busy and crowded and dirty.

Really, it’s because the cafeteria is Mike’s. That’s his terrain. Where he eats with the rest of the track team. Or his arty movie club. Sometimes it’s where he sits with Max and Lucas. Their group fell apart back in middle school, the same day Will had fallen apart. But the three of them still sit together, sometimes. A reminder of old times sake. A tight-knit group, minus the problem at its epicentre – Will.

So he eats outside, as far from the school building he can get. He doesn’t eat on the grass, because in summer that’s busier than the cafeteria. He eats on the line of dirt at the school’s perimeter instead.

* * *

He pulls himself through the rest of the day, then throws himself on his bike and pulls himself home.

Really, there’s not much high school left to go. In less than a year he’ll be out of Hawkins. He’ll be able to breathe again, far away from the whispered gossip and the shadows and Mike Fucking Wheeler.

When he gets home throws his bike against the wall. His legs feel like jelly when he pulls himself up the porch steps, the thought of his bed calling to him like a beacon of light.

The door gives way under his hand and he frowns. Did he forget to lock it? No one should be home for hours.

His questions are answered when he’s greeted by three faces crowded into his kitchen.

His mom, face pinched, leaning against the kitchen counter.

A man, nursing a cup of coffee, squinting at Will.

And a girl. Staring straight into Will’s soul.

He considers bypassing them completely, going straight to his room and drowning out all three of them with music. Something heavy and fierce.

But his Mom is staring at him, and he had made a promise, _to try_ , so instead Will clears his throat.

“What’s going on?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "And if he’s honest, he’s sick of learning about the sad, silent girl at the kitchen table. All he wants to do is curl up under his covers and not think about school or Mike or the way she keeps looking at him like he’s going to fix all her problems."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW; there is some reference to issues with food/eating disorders in this chapter. It's very brief but please be wary!!

The girl doesn’t stop watching him the entire time he’s sat there.

He learns her name first of all. El Hopper. He learns that her dad is the new chief, which makes Will nervous, even though he doesn’t do anything wrong. Nothing criminal, anyway.

He learns that her dad, Jim, Chief Hopper, used to live in Hawkins. That he knows his mom. Which explains the odd looks passing between the two of them.

Most importantly he learns that El is a senior like him. One that’s been hauled all the way across the country at the start of the school year. One that will be restarting high school again tomorrow.

She doesn’t say much. Just picks at the skin around her nails and switches between watching the table and watching Will. It should be creepy, but it just makes Will feel uncomfortable in his own skin.

His mom and the chief – “Hop” she calls him, which is disgusting by any standards – are talking like old friends. Will feels like he’s intruding. And if he’s honest, he’s sick of learning about the sad, silent girl at the kitchen table. All he wants to do is curl up under his covers and not think about school or Mike or the way she keeps looking at him like he’s going to fix all her problems.

So he pushes the chair back and goes to his room. He can hear his mom calling after him, a mixture of “Will?” and “Are you okay?”

He closes the door and turns up the radio until her voice is effectively drowned out. Then he tries to forget the collection of broken faces at the kitchen table.

* * *

By the time he emerges in the search of food, the kitchen is dark and vacant again. His mom is washing dishes, scrubbing at the same spot over and over again.

She startles when she sees him. Lowers the dish slightly. Answers the question he didn’t ask. “They went home. Wanted to get El ready for tomorrow.”

Will nods and pulls at the fridge till it gives way. If his mom wasn’t here, he’d just grab the block of cheese and take it back to his room, but that’s a no go if he doesn’t want to worry her. He chooses leftover Sheppard’s pie instead.

He’s heading back to his room when she calls him. She sounds tired, and the guilt stops Will in his tracks.

“What happened to trying, Will?”

“It’s not school,” he returns slowly. He’s on thin ice. He couldn’t cope with it if he made her cry again, and her voice sounds dangerously close. “I figured it didn’t count.”

She doesn’t cry. Instead she laughs. It sounds just as sad. “El’s a good kid. She’s quiet, and she’s clever. She’d be a good friend for you.”

Will doesn’t mention that he’s not clever, not anymore.

“So, here’s what’s going to happen,” she continues, eyes fixed on Will, tone unwavering. “You’re going to take Jonathan’s car tomorrow morning. I can drop him off at work. And you’re going to go and pick up El. And you’re going to try Will. Actually try. Like you promised.”

“But-”

“No buts. You got your license for this very reason.”

“I got my license for emergencies,” he mumbles under his breath, but doesn’t protest.

And when he looks up, his mom’s smile doesn’t look so fractured.

He takes the plate of cold food back to his room and eats it on the edge of the window, feet dangling down below him. The air is cold and it makes him hiss when there’s a particularly brutal gust of wind, but it’s a nice kind of cold. It makes him feel alive.

* * *

The next morning is Bad. From the moment he opens his eyes, he knows it’s a Bad Day. He doesn’t have the energy for anything other than rolling over and pressing his nose against the mattress. But still Jonathan comes and hauls his ass out of bed, muttering “if you’re gonna be stealing my car you might as well put it to good use.”

He knows as soon as he smells eggs in the kitchen that it’s gonna be a Bad Day eating-wise too. He finds himself clutching the edge of the toilet seat before it’s even seven o’clock, turning his stomach inside out.

Between retches he can hear a hushed conversation passing between the two people in the door.

“Maybe he shouldn’t go in today,” his mom’s voice is laced with worry and Will feels a sob building at the back of his throat because yesterday he made her smile and today he’s ruining all of that.

“Mom, you know what Dr Carmichael said. The tablets can give you some nausea. It’s not contagious, and it’ll pass in like, ten minutes.”

Will wipes at his mouth with his sleeve, and thanks god for his brother, the only one who can calm their mom down when she works herself up.

* * *

The whole drive over to pick up El, his head is whirling. He’s grateful it’s not a shaky day, that his hands are steady on the wheel. Everything aside from that points to a Very Bad Day.

He follows the instructions his mom had left on the side for him. It’s not her hand writing, it’s neat block lettering, not cursive. It dawns on him as he takes the third right that her and the chief were probably planning this in the kitchen that night. The thought of it almost makes him miss the next turning.

The Hoppers house is certainly nothing special. A cookie cutter house, on an unassuming street. The door is the only difference. A blue stained door in a neighbourhood of brown and red. It makes Will smile.

He considers pressing the horn but instead opts down the considerate root of actually knocking.

It’s the chief that answers. He’s red in the face, holding a frying pan full of French toast. He offers some out to Will, who shakes his head. It doesn’t make him gip, though. He takes that as progress.

“El!” Hopper bellows over his shoulder, backing out of the doorway.

His shout is returned with an equally ferocious, “coming!”

The girl that replaces him by the door is nothing like the one who was sat at the Byer’s kitchen table last night. Her hair has been scraped back into two braids and Will thinks he can see a hint of eyeshadow coating her lid. She slips out of the door quickly and closes it behind her. She’s wearing a turquoise jumpsuit, cinched in at the waist with a dark blue belt. Will eyes the outfit and raises an eyebrow, but says nothing.

El slips into the passenger seat with ease. Almost as if they’ve been doing this forever. She’s still quiet, Will realises as he jerkily pulls away from the street, but it somehow feels comfortable.

They’re two minutes into the journey when she speaks. “Thanks for the lift.”

Will shrugs her off, which makes her deflate a little. It’s barely noticeable. But Will notices.

“You’re welcome,” he rectifies. Then; “You can put the radio on if you want.”

“What?”

“The radio. You can put it on.”

She nods and leans forward, fiddling with the dial until the sound of Blondie wavers through the air. Will would be happy with the driving, and the music, but El seems to be one of those people who actually likes talking, so he tries to engage.

“Do you always drive to school?”

He shakes his head, “No. I normally ride. My bike. I normally ride my bike.” He can’t remember the last time he had to string this many words together. It hurts.

“Oh.”

“Are you nervous?”

“Nervous?” El frowns, brow furrowing.

“Your first day at a new school.”

“Should I be nervous?”

Will actually laughs at that. It catches him by surprise. “Depends. How big was your school in Nebraska?”

She thinks for a moment, then shrugs. “Pretty big, I guess. 2,000 maybe.”

“I say you’ll be alright then. Hawkins isn’t that scary, trust me.”

“My dad said that.”

“And did you believe him?”

She doesn’t answer. Will doesn’t blame her. Hawkins may not be that scary to an insider, but to an outside it sucks. Will should know.

* * *

It’s weird, parking at school when he’s so used to the familiar cold metal of the bike rack. He chooses a spot far away from the entrance, because he doesn’t want any sort of confrontation, not today. El had distracted him from the Bad Day temporarily, but it’s back with a vengeance as soon as he sees the crowd of students pushing towards the school building.

Will accompanies El to the school office, sitting outside as she collects a locker key and a timetable. He swings his legs on the cold plastic chairs. Tries to remember the last time he found himself at the principal’s office. Realises it was probably the day everything fell apart.

El is in all AP classes. Will doesn’t know why that surprises him, because his mom had said that she was bright. But still, for reasons he can’t explain, it stings a little as they part ways.

“I’ll see you at lunch,” El informs him, with such certainty that for a moment Will forgets that he’s not meant to have friends.

“Yeah,” he returns, slightly dazed. “See you at lunch.”

And he does see her at lunch. He’s grabbing his coat from his locker when he feels someone’s hands on his shoulders and breath on his neck.

“So,” she says, smiling more than anyone at a new school should. “Lunch?”

El doesn’t say anything about his choice in eating spot, just digs out a sandwich squashed in the depths of her bag. Will’s not eating because he doesn’t eat on Bad Days. It’s just a rule.

She talks about everything. About her classes. About Nebraska. About the crushed bag of chips hidden at the bottom of her bag. She talks as if they’ve known each other for a lifetime. Will lets her, if it means he doesn’t have to talk much in return.

They’re heading back to class, behind the bins which Will swears is a shortcut, when they discover it.

Of all the people from middle school, Will sees Dustin the least. Even less than Mike, who he tries so hard to avoid. And it’s not because he doesn’t like Dustin. He really does. He was always the softest, the easiest, the friendliest member of their little party.

It’s more because Dustin is a fucking enigma. Every semester his exploits seem to grown amongst the hushed rumours of Hawkins High. The first year it had been said that he was on a one-man mission to adopt every turtle in Indiana. In junior year he was set to become the youngest state governor in history. His campaign was legendary amongst the students.

Will believes them all. All of the stories. Because he knew Dustin in middle school and sometimes he is just like that.

He’s still surprised to run into him with fifty boxes of chocolate behind the school bins.

“Well well well,” he starts, pulling his cap off and mock-bowing, “if it isn’t my old friend Will the Wise. How you doing man?”

Will struggles to pull a cohesive sentence together, but manages a “yeah, good,” before rubbing at his neck and asking “I’m sorry, Dustin, but what the hell is going on?”

“Oh, these?” He slaps one of the boxes before leaning against them. They waiver slightly and Dustin has to struggle to keep upright. El snorts behind him. “These are just my road to victory, William. My previous adventures have deemed me a king. This year I aim to become a god among men.”

Will just nods, feeling to dazed and confused. “With… fifty boxes of chocolate bars?”

“Yeah, yeah I know,” Dustin sighs, looking apologetic. “It was meant to be a hundred and fifty. What can you do.”

The bell sounds again and he feels El tug at his arm. “I’m sorry, strange… bin gremlin man, but me and Will really have to go now. Thanks for this… interesting experience.” She’s pulling him through the fire door and down the corridor before he can even say goodbye to Dustin.

“Okay, what the hell was that?” she hisses to him, tone bubbling with laughter.

“That was Dustin. And a lot of chocolate. I think he’s making some sort of store.”

“Is that legal?”

“No. It’s Dustin.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading this chapter!! I'm very much enjoying exploring these characters in this fic, especially Dustin, he is just so fun to write!!
> 
> This may actually exceed 11 chapters, but we'll see how it goes!!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It’s sad, Will thinks. El is funny, and smart, and kind. She could be friends with anyone else. For some reason, one Will doesn’t fucking know, she chooses to be friends with him instead."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW; more reference to food issues/eating disorders

When he gets home that night, he forgets that today was even meant to be a Bad Day. He sits at the kitchen table and spreads his school work around himself. He even starts to attempt the equations Mrs Berk set for him. His head normally starts to spin when he tries to look at numbers, but now they all sit still long enough for him to scrawl out his answers.

The chief had picked El up from school. The car ride home had felt so empty without her in the passenger seat, humming along to the radio or trailing her hand out the car window. But the bad thoughts hadn’t crept back in and when he got home, he hadn’t run straight to his bed. Progress.

His mom looks surprised when she comes home and finds him sat there, halfway through an essay on the civil war. He greets her with a half-smile. The beam she returns is blinding.

Everything is fine until he tries to eat. It’s Jonathan’s night to cook so he had picked up a pizza on the way home. They eat at the table, oil oozing through the cardboard, cheese hanging like cobwebs from the pizza. Will had been looking forward to it, but now as he puts a slice of pizza into his mouth it tastes like the box it came in. It lodges itself at the back of throat until he can’t breathe and the next thing he knows he’s fishing around in his mouth to get it out.

Back when food first turned to fear, Jonathan would crouch in front of him and tell him, “hey, it’s okay. Don’t worry about it. We can try again later. It’s okay.” Will had snapped once and told him to shut up so loudly that the neighbours came to check everything was okay.

Jonathan hasn’t tried again since. Now he just takes the pizza away and throws it all in the bin. And Will goes to his room and tries to drown out the sound of his mom crying in the other room.

* * *

The next morning, he expects to feel worse than the night before. But when morning comes he manages to crack his eyes open. All he feels is sunlight, warm on his face. No shadows. They’re still there, but they seem more subdued, dull and quiet. He can deal with that.

When he pulls onto El’s street that morning, he is surprised to see her already waiting outside. She grins when she sees him, raises her hand to a salute before pulling open the car door and clambering in.

“Morning,” she breathes out. Her face is red from the cold, and today she’s wearing a hat that covers her ears.

“Morning,” Will returns, pressing his lips together into a small smile.

He doesn’t quite know how it becomes tradition. Neither of them comment on it, beside from El’s small “see you tomorrow” as they part ways in the school parking lot. But every day, Will pulls up outside the Hopper residence. And every day El is waiting for him on the doorstep.

On Good Days, they listen to the radio, or a mixtape Will has swiped from Jonathan. El sings along and Will drives. Sometimes El talks of her dad, or her old friends, or the latest fashion trends. Will recounts the plots of movies he half remembers, which always makes El laugh. It’s their own little routine.

On Bad Days, they drive in silence. Will focuses on the road, and El presses her head against the glass, watching the blurred landscape. The Bad Days aren’t as bad by the time he’s driven to school with El. Not gone, but definitely not as bad.

He learns that El has bad days too. On those days she’ll by sat on the porch step, like standing is just too tiring. She’s drained on those days, less talkative, but still somewhat happy. Happier than Will on a good day.

El spends the first few weeks mirroring Will. She eats lunch with him. Walks to class by his side. She keeps her head down, just like him. Doesn’t talk to anyone.

She doesn’t ask many questions. Not about why Will doesn’t have many friends, or why the sea of students sometimes parts to let him through. He’s grateful for that, more than anything.

It’s sad, Will thinks. El is funny, and smart, and kind. She could be friends with anyone else. For some reason, one Will doesn’t fucking know, she chooses to be friends with him instead.

It’s October when his heart shatters into a million pieces. He’s hauling his ass to his next class when he sees the two of them. El is laughing, hand covering her mouth, eyes darting around the corridor. And Max is seemingly make some joke, bag tucked under her arm. They look at ease with one another, like old friends.

Max is pointing, hand extending down the corridor. It takes a couple of seconds – hours? It feels that way – before Will numbly realises she’s pointing at him. He tries to look away, but he can’t pull his eyes from the two of them. It’s like seeing a car crash.

El makes a silent goodbye and bounds down the corridor towards him. Will can barely breathe because if she’s talking to Max that means she knows and if she knows, then she must hate him. How could she not? Everyone hates him. He hates him.

But El just grabs his wrist, and pulls him down the corridor, “You’re gonna be late to chemistry. Close your mouth, you’re gonna catch flies.”

“What?” he’s bewildered. She’s still talking to him. Maybe Max didn’t say anything.

“Something my dad always says.” When he doesn’t budge, she rolls her eyes and drops his arm.

They’re halfway to class when he cracks. He can’t hold it in any longer, so he fixes El with a look and blurts out, “why were you talking to Max?”

El just frowns, step faltering slightly. “Because… she’s in my Calculus. Why are you being weird?”

“I’m not being weird-”

“Yes, you are. And so was she when I mentioned you. What’s the deal with you two? Did you used to date?” El whispers. She looks excited at the idea of unlocking the gossip. If only the truth was that simple.

Will shakes his head. “No, no. She was dating Lucas within, like, a week of moving here.”

“Oh,” El shrugs, turning to face him. She’s walking backwards down the corridor now, shouldering her way through the crowds. “Wait, Lucas? Student president Lucas?”

He nods, exasperated, which makes El laugh. “No way. Those two should not work together.”

“Well, they’ve been working together so far.”

El waves him off, “Sure. Max mentioned that she’s already broken up with her boyfriend twice this year.”

Huh. That’s news to Will.

El blows him a kiss as they part ways, which makes Will’s cheeks burn red because that might be common practise in Nebraska but it’s certainly not in Hawkins. He shuffles to class and tries to stop thinking about El and Max and why she didn’t tell her.

* * *

He’s sprawled on the couch with his mom when the phone rings. He’s not sure what they’re watching, because he’s not really paying attention. He’s picking at a loose thread on the couch cushion, pulling and unravelling it until it comes apart under his fingertips. If only his mind were so easy to untangle.

The phone starts to bleat for attention, the dull ringing shrill and piercing. There’s a look exchanged between his mom and Jonathan, a silent discussion. Will is the one who ends it, pulling himself up and muttering, “I’ll get it.”

He ignores the bewildered expression on Jonathan’s face and pulls the phone of its hook. “Hello, Byers residence.”

“Will? That you?” Will doesn’t know what he was expecting. A cold caller. His dad maybe. Whatever he expected, it wasn’t Lucas Sinclair, whose voice fills the line now.

He nods, dazed, before realising Lucas can’t see him. “Uh… yeah. It’s me.”

“How are you man? Sorry it’s pretty late to be calling, hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”

Will glances to the couch, then murmurs, “No, you didn’t,” he paces down the corridor, stretching the phone cord as far as it will go.

“Great. Cool,” Lucas seems way too excited for a phone call to Will. “Look, I don’t know whether Max mentioned anything, but I’m having a party tomorrow night.”

Will wrinkles his nose. “Why would Max have said anything?”

“She said she talked to your friend,” Lucas supplies. El.

“Oh.”

“So I was just calling to see if you wanted to come. It’s at my place. Seven-ish.”

This is new. Lucas always offers Will an invitation to his parties, but only when they pass in the hallway at school. Never over the phone.

He probably just wants to invite El. Probably knows that he’s practically her chauffeur.

Will’s mind is already reeling with excuses, but before he can use any of them, Lucas is speaking again. “Look, Will. There’s no pressure. But if it helps, they can be pretty fun. And I don’t invite assholes.”

Will knows what that means. The party will be ‘safe’ for him. ‘Safe’ for freaky Will Byers.

“You don’t even have to let me know. Just show up if you feel like it.”

“Yeah,” he tries, his voice falling out from beneath, “Okay. See you, Lucas.”

“Later Will. I hope you do come. It won’t be the same without you.”

Will hangs up then because he can’t breathe. He can cope with Lucas’ phony kindness but this? Being nice to Will? Calling his house? He doesn’t deserve it. he doesn’t deserve any of it.

He forces air into his lungs and pulls himself up.

“Will? Who was that on the phone?” His mom shouts.

Will shouts back, “Lucas Sinclair,” before he can change his mind.

He flops onto his bed with a groan and grabs a pillow to smother himself because it really is going to be one of those years, isn’t it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm honestly not sure how I feel about this chapter, but I wrote the next couple in advance and I really like them so just take this as like, a filler chapter I guess.
> 
> Also Will's food issues aren't a specific eating disorder, more just an extension of his depression & inability to enjoy things. I put eating disorder in the tags to avoid triggering anyone.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "He only agrees because she promises to bring him a thermostat of coffee every morning. She locks their pinkie fingers together when he reluctantly agrees.
> 
> “Do you know what this is?” she asks, their fingers intertwined."

Will doesn’t know what he’s expecting from a high school party. A very intense game of monopoly isn’t it.

In the end, it’s El that convinces him to go. She talks about it non-stop in the car ride to school, droning on and on about how Max was coming early to help her get ready and how Will should come and not just because he’s the only friend she has that can drive. He bites his lip and doesn’t say that he’s one of her only friends.

He only agrees because she promises to bring him a thermostat of coffee every morning. She locks their pinkie fingers together when he reluctantly agrees.

“Do you know what this is?” she asks, their fingers intertwined.

Will rolls his eyes, “Yes, El, I know what a pinkie swear is.”

“Good. Then you know what happens if you break it.”

“No coffee?” he hazards.

“I get to choose the music for the next month.”

Really, that’s enough to make sure that Will doesn’t break the promise.

* * *

He thinks about cancelling as he raids his wardrobe that night. He throws all his shirts onto the bed, inspecting them all individually. Will doesn’t care what he looks like, not really. At least not on a normal day. But this isn’t a normal day. It’s a party at Lucas Sinclair’s house. Contrary to popular belief, he does care what people think of him.

“Maybe I shouldn’t go,” he tells Jonathan, staring at his reflection mournfully. None of his clothes fit right, and they’re all ripped in off places or stained with ink.

“No way. You’re going,” Jonathan states firmly, lifting up on of the piles. “You’ve got to have something half decent in here.”

Will sits down on the edge of his bed, studying Jonathan carefully. “Really, you shouldn’t be encouraging this. There’s gonna be underage drinking.” He doesn’t know that for certain, but that’s just how it is in movies.

“Will, if anyone deserves to let loose and break the rules, it’s you,” Jonathan says. He sounds sincere, which Will thinks is stupid because he always breaks the rules. He says nothing.

They manage to construct an outfit, digging out the only non-faded pair of trousers Will owns and a long-sleeved shirt that actually fits around his body. Jonathan lends him his brown jacket – the nice one their dad gave him.

Will picks up El and Max at 6:55. It’s weird, knowing they’re definitely going to be late, but Lucas said ‘Seven-ish’ and Jonathan insists that it’s wrong to arrive on time.

He expects to see the two of them waiting outside but the porch steps are deserted. He presses onto the horn, too pent up to get out and knock. They appear two minutes later. El climbs into the front seat. She’s wearing some shorts that look to big for her legs, but Will assumes that’s the style. Her hair is free, bouncing around her face. She looks happier than Will has ever seen her.

He lets her have free reign over the music, and she chooses Cyndi Lauper. The sound of the radio, turned up fully, and the two of them wailing along is deafening. For a moment Will forgets that the girl in the backseat is Max, Lucas’ girlfriend, Mike Wheeler’s friend. It’s nice, he thinks, to forget.

They park a block away, because Lucas’ street is packed. By the time they get to the house it is already swelling with people. Will hates it. Why would someone go somewhere as busy as school with people from school, for fun?

Sometimes he thinks that they’re the crazy ones. Not him.

Instead he focuses on the house. It’s almost identical to how it lives in his memories. The front has been repainted, and the smashed window that Dustin launched a truck through has been replaced. But the staircase where they had played avalanche still stands, and the family pictures haven’t changed. Will notices one by the door. He recognises his own face, beaming back happily. Its disconcerting, seeing himself wedged between Lucas and Mike, grinning like that. It’s weirder that Lucas didn’t take it down.

The girls excuse themselves to go get a drink, and because Will is driving he lets them go. El squeezes his arm when she leaves, and he’s grateful for that.

He pushes onwards through the crowds, recognising a few faces. A girl from his art. A guy that runs track with Mike. No one that he wants to talk to, or who would want to talk to him.

He makes his way to the back room, which is where he discovers it.

Jonathan didn’t particularly go to a lot of parties in high school, but he went to enough to paint a pretty vivid picture. It was mainly alcohol and dancing and bundles of hormones making out.

None of his stories included a giant game of monopoly.

“Hey, Will the Wise!” of course Dustin is playing. He calls to him, lifting both arms enthusiastically. He feels a blush seep to his face with the nickname, but still sidles over to the game.

“Everyone, this is Will, he’s the best,” he gestures to the group huddled around the board. There’s a chorus of hellos and greetings and someone reaching out to shake his hand. Will says nothing, just stands awkwardly. How can Dustin introduce him as ‘the best’? He recognises some of their faces from Middle School. They remember what he did. He’s in no way the best.

But Dustin pushes on, “Will, there’s are the mere mortals that I am destroying at monopoly.” He hits the floor next to him until Will lowers himself down. He holds out his cup but Will does not know what’s in it and he’s no drinking, so he declines.

It turns out that even drunk, Dustin is some sort of genius. He is right in saying he’s winning. The guy is savvy with business, which probably explains why his candy stand has become something of legend amongst the Hawkins students.

He’s assigned the job of Dustin’s personal assistant; a job he really doesn’t mind. He banks Dustin’s winnings and advises him on plays- Dustin doesn’t need the help, Will realises. That’s just the type of guy he is. He runs into Lucas in the kitchen when he’s getting Dustin another drink – apple vodka and mountain dew because he’s still a disgusting twelve-year-old boy, apparently.

“Will! You came!” Lucas grabs his shoulders and pulls him into a rough hug. Will feels wooden, because Lucas is drunk and apparently he is the friendly kind.

“Yeah, I came,” he forces a smile.

“What you drinking?” he gestures to the cup, and is downing it before Will can even protest, “Mmh. Pretty good.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Will murmurs.

“What?” Lucas shouts over the music, reaching out to refill the cup.

“I said,” Will repeats louder this time. He doesn’t even feel self conscious, because everything at this party is loud, “I wouldn’t know.” Lucas looks confused, so he elaborates, “It’s for Dustin.”

“Oh no, do not give Dustin alcohol. He’s already unbearable sober. Last time we got drunk, he dared himself to go skinny dipping.”

Will laughs. It doesn’t feel uncomfortable in his throat. “And did he?”

“Thankfully, he didn’t make it to the water before Mike managed to restrain him.”

And there it is. Will forces himself to swallow. “Mike was there?”

Lucas looks somewhat sorry which is funny really, because if anyone should be uncomfortable it’s him. And he is.

“Yeah, he was… sort of a… middle school reunion, I guess.”

Lucas looks like he’s going to try to talk to Will about it all, and frankly he’s too tired for that, so instead he blurts out, “Do you know where El is?”

The awkwardness seemingly evaporates, and Lucas basically melts in relief.

“Yeah, she’s with Max,” he grabs Will’s wrist and pulls him through the crowd and into the living room, which is blaring pop music so loud the walls are practically vibrating. He points to the mass of dancing bodies, and Will pinpoints El straight away.

She’s thrashing about, singing the words louder than anyone else. He always knew that she didn’t care what others think about her, but it’s never been more obvious than now. She grabs onto Max who looks reluctant and a little bemused, spinning her around with a laugh.

He presses his back against the wall, discovering that Lucas has gone and he’s the one guy in the room not dancing.

Except, he’s not the only one. Because at the other side of the room, Mike Wheeler is nursing a red cup and studying the writhing mass of bodies too. He’s wearing a jumper, and he’s red in the face. Will doesn’t know whether it’s from the heat or the alcohol. He’s studying someone, eyes darting around as they move.

Will tears his eyes from Will and follows his gaze. Finds it resting on El.

Will forgets how to breathe. Because Mike Wheeler, of all people, is staring at El, the one person in the world who can actually stand him.

And then, because Will just has the best fucking luck, Mike’s gaze drops from El to the boy across the room. Staring straight into his soul.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a really good time writing this chapter, it was a wild ride and very different to what I usually write.
> 
> It's also mad to me just how underage these characters are. If this fic was set in England most of them would be legally drinking by now. I tried to keep that in mind when writing this chapter.
> 
> I also realised I never plugged my tumblr here (bc it's a hot mess) but feel free to follow me @muppetstiefel


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Then he rolls over and presses his face into the mattress, as if the pressure will elevate the thoughts of Mike and El and Lucas Sinclair’s damn house."

Will tries to scrubs the memory of Mike watching him out of his mind. He stands under his shower at home, letting the faucet spray directly onto his face. He doesn’t care if it runs down into his eyes. The pain would be quite welcome.

Mike wasn’t watching him. Not really. He was watching El. In some ways that hurts even more.

Their eyes had only locked for half a second but it was enough to make him realise just how hot that room was. He had tried to wave to Mike but he couldn’t, his hand just wouldn’t cooperate. He’d managed to push his way out of the room, down the corridor and out into the rapidly cooling night air. He’d sat down on the edge of Lucas wall and tried to get Mike’s eyes out of his mind.

He’d done that once before. He could do it again.

That was where El and Max had found him. They smelled like alcohol and sweat but they were laughing as they spilled out of the house. That laughter died in the air when they saw Will, clutching his chest and trying to remember how to breathe.

“Will?” El had bent down in front of him cautiously, like a frightened cat.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” he lied, teeth gritted. He could feel Max’s eyes on the back of his neck. “Just got a little hot.”

El didn’t buy it. He could see it in the way the concern welled in her eyes.

It’s only after he’d dropped them both at Max’s house that he allowed himself to crumble. He screamed half-heartedly and hit the steering wheel, flinching at the way the horn bleats. He considered driving off into the hills and parking up for the night, falling asleep where no one can find him.

But he was too tired for that. So instead he drove home and fled to the bathroom before anyone could ask him any stupid questions about how his night went.

Now he steps out of the shower and scrubs at his hair with the towel he left in the sink.

Sometimes, he barely recognises himself. His face is always pale and his eyes dark, like some sort of zombie goth. His skin doesn’t fit his body, it sags and pinches in the wrong place, like an ill-fitting suit.

He pinches at his arm and feels nothing but rubbery skin between his fingers. His hands ghost over his torso to find and count each rib bone.

He can’t look in the mirror too long. He’s afraid he’ll fall in.

He traipses to his room and roots around under his pillow for the only pair of pyjamas that still fit him. Then he rolls over and presses his face into the mattress, as if the pressure will elevate the thoughts of Mike and El and Lucas Sinclair’s damn house.

* * *

Sunday is an odd day. An in-between of good and bad. He wakes up around nine and manages to actually eat, which is always a miracle on mornings. Jonathan has left early to do some freelance shoot so it’s just him and his mom, eating toast in a sleepy sort of haze. She doesn’t mention the party, but her face is pinched in a way that suggests it’s taking a lot for her not to ask.

Will doesn’t much feel like talking, so he doesn’t. He sprawls on the couch to watch cartoons, head resting on the arm of the chair. His mom curls up next to him, legs tucked in, taking up much less space than Will. She always takes up less space.

By four in the afternoon, Jonathan is home. Him and Joyce talk, mindless chatter to fill the void of emptiness in Will’s head. Because that’ what it is today. Empty. He misses the emotions, the sensation of being caught in the headlights by Mike Wheeler. He prods at the bruise, but there’s no pain. Just emptiness.

* * *

El climbs into the car on Monday morning with a flask of coffee and an apologetic look. She’s about to start talking, so Will reaches forwards and turns up the radio so loud, drowning her out before she even begins. She sinks back into the seat, a little dejected and Will winces with guilt. But the last thing he wants to do is talk to El, with her wide eyed innocence and her soft voice that makes him feel like crying.

They drive to school in silence. It’s not a Bad Day, per say, but it is a loud one. Yesterday his mind was void and now it’s full, cluttered and vibrating.

“Are you okay, Will?” El asks him before they part ways. All Will can do is nod and squeeze her arm. A sign that he’s still alive. That, at least, makes her smile as they part ways.

The last person he expects to see waiting by his locker is Mike Wheeler.

He’s wearing his track uniform and he keeps rapping his fist against Will’s locker, an unconscious action. He looks agitated, face pinched in a way he only looks when he’s in algebra. Not that Will should know that. He definitely didn’t use to watch Mike in algebra.

He shakes the thought of Mike’s furrowed brows from his mind and swallows the ball of spit gathering at the back of his throat. Maybe Mike is waiting for one of his friends? Maybe he’s just loitering? Maybe Will hit his head really hard and this all some weird fever dream?

But then Mike spots him and raises his hand in a half-wave. He’s smiling, actually smiling, and Will feels his legs crumble underneath him.

He could run right now, turn and flee the school. But then there would be questions, and phone calls and El’s eyes full of concern. So he decides to stay.

He manages to stay upright, tightening his grip on his backpack, and takes the final few steps towards Mike.

It’s been a long time since he’s seen Mike this up close. His mouth is stretched into a grin and Will can’t remember how he could breathe with that smile so near to him. Mike’s much taller now, looming a foot or so above him. It’s different. It’s grounding.

When Will doesn’t say anything, Mike shakes his head, and leans down a little so that the words only pass between the two of them. “You were at Lucas’ on Saturday, right?”

He certainly wasn’t expecting that. Threats, maybe. Demands for Will to stop staring at him like a lost dog. A release of pent-up middle school anger. Instead he gets a question laced with certainty. Will nods slightly. All he can think about is how deep Mike’s voice is, how it lilts differently than it did in middle school.

Mike pushes on with his questioning. Will never thought their first conversation since middle school would be an interrogation. “I thought so. Look, I saw you come in with Max and...”

He trails off, waving his hands, as if waiting for Will to complete the sentence. He did.

“El?”

“Yes, right! El,” he seems eager to land on the name. Will readjusts his feet, trying to feel more steady. “Well, I didn’t know that was her name. I ran into her at Max’s house like, a week ago. And then on Saturday, she sort of spilled a drink on me.”

“What did you want?” It’s blunt, but Will doesn’t care. he needs to get out of there, far away from Mike and the way he says El as if the word itself is a secret.

“Oh, yeah. Well, I guess I just wanted you to… you know, put in a good word. For me, I mean.”

And there it is. Will had seen it coming but it still feels like a knife in the side. Why else would Mike Wheeler be talking to him? He’s not bitter. El is beautiful and why else would Mike want to talk to him, after what he did? Still, he has to force air into his lungs.

He laughs, because what else is there to do. Mike looks at him like he’s crazy. Maybe he is.

“Will? I know it’s a weird thing to ask, but Max is a huge dick and she would just laugh at me… if anyone would understand, it’s you.”

He sucks in a sharp breath. Tries not to let the words work. Because Mike is lying. Mike hates Will. Mike thinks Will is crazy.

He nods. There’s nothing left in him anyway. He’s empty. If anyone deserves Mike, it’s El with her easy laughs and her appalling taste in music.

Then Mike is smiling again, clapping Will on the shoulder, and backing down the corridor.

Will feels simultaneously dead inside and so alive.

* * *

He means to tell El, he really does. But by the time he’s scooped his heart off the floor and reassembled it, he’s already late to English. He slips in with a breathless apology and purposely ignores the way Max watches him the whole lesson.

He plans to tell her at lunch. He needs to tell her because he needs to get it out. Mike Wheeler’s eyes are seemingly branded onto his mind.

Mike’s eyes before, bright and shining.

Mike’s eyes during, welling with tears.

Mike’s eyes at the party, fixed on El.

Mike’s eyes at the lockers, looking at Will with some sort of friendship.

He’s ready to tell her. He waits for her outside her biology classroom, face pinched with worry. She frowns when she sees him, halting mid conversation with some girl beside her.

“Will?” There’s that concern again. He opens his mouth to talk, but it’s dry and empty, word vacating him. El takes a step closer. Her fingers brush his sleeve. He braces himself.

“Hey, guys!” the voice belongs to Dustin, who appears seemingly from thin air. He wedges himself between the two of them, panting like he’s just run a marathon. El is still fixing him with a look of worry. Will turns all his attention to Dustin instead.

“So, Will, El,” he starts, slinging his arms around both of their shoulders.

El crinkles her nose slightly, “How do you know my name?”

“I know everyone at this school,” he teases, nudging her slightly. Then, after a brief pause, adds, “Max told me.”

El rolls her eyes and its Will’s turn to snort, “of course she did.”

“Look, the details of my informant don’t matter. I have something much more interesting to discuss with the two of you.”

They’ve reach El’s locker by now. She fiddles with the lock and pulls out a pile of French textbooks, before leaning against the cold metal and fixing Dustin with a pointed look. “Oh yeah?”

“Yes,” Dustin is grinning, checking over his shoulder for eavesdroppers. He leans closer, pulling Will into the huddle. “How would you two like to join my budding business as shareholders.”

If this had been five weeks ago, Dustin would’ve never asked Will. And Will would’ve never laughed at the proposal. Sometimes life really is strange.

“Become… shareholders? Of your illegal candy business?” El is smirking, biting her lip to keep the laughter down.

Dustin scratches at his head, looking a little embarrassed. “I’d never normally ask, but the principal is buzzing around my head, that son of a bitch, and honestly- I can’t afford to fail. I paid $30 for that chocolate. I made a stall and everything.”

“What’s in it for us?” El asks. Ever the entrepreneur.

“A split of the profit.”

“How much?”

“20%.”

“A third each and we have a deal.”

Dustin holds his hand out to her with a solemn nod and she shakes it. Then he pivots, turns to Will and does the same.

“How about you, Will the Wise?”

And because life is really fucking bizarre, and because El and Dustin are both looking at him like they actually care what he has to say, he swallows the lump in his throat and shakes.

By the time Dustin is backing down the corridor towards the cafeteria, El has forgotten all about Will. Which is fine by him. He swallows any idea of Mike Wheeler and his crush on El, instead just shrugging when she asks him what’s new.

It’s best for everyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I did not enjoy that chapter. Mike is a hard character to write!! But the end result was quite rewarding.
> 
> Thank you for all the kind comments, they really mean the world to me and inspire me to keep writing. Sorry for the late upload, I had a few days with friends and decided to not write anything to give myself a break. Next chapter is already written and should be up tomorrow!!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The edge of high school seems to have softened. Glares melt into passive expression, hushed rumours turn to reluctant waves. It’s not popularity, or even friendliness. More just a void of nothingness. A forgiveness for the past."

It’s weird, walking around for the first few weeks after Lucas’ party. The edge of high school seems to have softened. Glares melt into passive expression, hushed rumours turn to reluctant waves. It’s not popularity, or even friendliness. More just a void of nothingness. A forgiveness for the past.

Will hates it, how easily he fades into the crowd. He never liked the attention from his peers, but he always felt he deserved it. Being shunned always made the pain more palpable. It made him remember how shitty he was.

Now he’s adjusting to being one of a thousand students. Because why would Lucas Sinclair ever befriend a freak? Will Byers must be alright now.

Of course, to El nothing has changed. For someone who has such wide eyes, she really doesn’t see anything. To her, nothing is deeper than it seems. He loves her for that.

She gets in the car this morning with two flasks. It’s below freezing as soon as winter even brushes Hawkins and so she is bundled up in a thick black coat and a winding yellow scarf that obstructs most of her face. She tugs it down to talk.

“Sorry, no coffee today. Dad banned me. Said something about how stimulants are bad for teenagers?” She shrugs and hands him a flask which he gratefully accepts. He takes a sip and hazards a guess.

“Hazelnut Cocoa?”

“Got it in one,” El grins and takes her own sip, wincing as she does so. “Shit that’s hot.”

It’s a good day. Insanely good, really. Even with the pressure of Mike’s confession on his shoulders. He lets El pick the music. She chooses Fleetwood Mac, switching the track straight to Landslide. When Will questions her, she just shrugs, and says “It’s a Stevie Nicks kind of day.”

Max is waiting for them when they pull up. More specifically, she’s waiting for El. She’s scowling, bag folded into her arms, wind tangling her hair across her face. She’s barely wearing a coat, just a beat up leather jacket. El hands her the cocoa when they get out the car, which she accepts gratefully.

Mid-way through her conversation, Max turns her attention to Will. “Lucas was looking for you.”

“Me?” Will asks, pointing to his chest. It’s meant to be funny and his heart leaps when El giggles.

Max just rolls her eyes. “Yes, you, dick for brains. I think he wanted to catch you before first period.”

That’s Will’s cue to slope off, and he does as he’s told. He’s happy to, really, because in 4 minutes and 50 ish seconds Mike Wheeler will be pulling into that parking lot.

Mike. Shit. He shifts his gaze onto El. It would be so easy to tell her, to just let the information slip in the briefest of seconds. But Lucas is waiting, and Max seems to be ranting about something and there just isn’t time. That’s what he tells himself as he pushes at the heavy double doors.

* * *

He finds Lucas in the cafeteria. It’s alien territory, so Will steps lightly. He avoids the life forms. Stays focused on the mission at hand.

Lucas is sat in the far corner. He’s sat alone, which is rare feat, tackling a breakfast waffle. He waves to Will when he sees him, beckoning him over.

“Hey,” Will starts, because Lucas has just taken a bite out of the waffle at hand. “Max said… you were looking for me?”

Lucas grins through the mouthful of waffle. On anyone else it would look disgusting. On Lucas, it’s a little charming. “Yeah! I was!”

“And?” Will shuffles uncomfortably. He’s not used to these sorts of conversations. With his mom and Jonathan, it’s straight to the point. Straight to carving out the most important information. With El, the conversations meander, but they’re usually filled with long silences and big soliloquys from El. He’s not used to back and forth.

Lucas swallows the mouthful of batter and sugar in his mouth. “We were gonna go catch a movie. I don’t know if you’ve seen Beetlejuice yet but it’s pretty wicked. Me and Dustin have already been three times.”

Will blinks. He didn’t know what he was expecting – not really. A pledge for re-election next semester? A form of intervention? Definitely not an invite to a movie.

“I- I don’t know. I might be busy,” his throat feels like it’s closing up. This all to normal. All too nice.

Lucas frowns, crinkling the edge of the napkin on the table. “Well, are you busy after school?”

“No…”

“Great. That’s when we’re going,” he smiles triumphantly.

Will inwardly curses himself and searches for an excuse, any excuse. “I have to drive El home.”

“Bullshit. Chief Hopper picks her up.”

He doesn’t know how Lucas knows so much about El, or Will for that matter, but he does know he’s out of excuses. Lucas senses that too, because he slings his backpack over his shoulder and stands up.

“I’ll see you at the multiplex, Byers,” he clasps him on the shoulder as he walks past, “Bring supplies.”

He watches him stroll through the almost deserted cafeteria like he owns it. tossing the napkin in the bin. Will’s stomach writhes with guilt and anxiety.

“Lucas, wait,” he calls out, taking a couple of steps forward.

The other boy freezes and spins on the spot. “Yeah?”

“Why are you being so nice to me?” He has to ask. The worry will eat him up inside if he doesn’t.

Lucas just shrugs. Pauses. Then; “Middle school was a long time ago, Will. People change.”

* * *

He tries to get those words out of his mind all day. He actually pays attention in history, hoping it will distract him. It doesn’t. He passes El on his way to fourth period and she tells him her and Max are sneaking out at lunch to get corndogs. The invitation is left open to him, but he declines. When he looks at El now all he sees are Mike’s eyes, and it makes everything so much harder.

Instead he spends his lunch in the restroom, trying to remember how to breathe. Trying to get Lucas’ words out of his head.

There is the briefest of moments when he considers just driving home. He holds onto the steering wheel with both of hands and plants his face in the middle. He could be home in twenty minutes. He could have a bath. He could talk to his mom.

But he won’t do that, so he might as well go to the movies and watch Beetlejuice for the second time.

(the chief had taken the whole Byers family the other week. He had sat next to El, who never for one second took her eyes off the screen. It’s the closest he’d felt to a proper family in years.)

He pulls into the parking lot and sits there for twenty minutes, trying to get his hands to stop shaking. Which is crazy because they went to the doctor on Saturday and they increased his dose. But the more he thinks about not shaking, the more unsteady he feels. He’s surprised he even makes it through the door.

Lucas is waiting for him just inside the door. He looks surprised to see him, but he doesn’t mention it. “Hey, Will!” He greets, tackling him into a hug. Will feels himself seize up and tries to hug back. Doesn’t quite manage to.

“Sorry I’m late. Hope we didn’t miss the movie,” he mutters, which makes the other boy laugh slightly.

When Lucas pulls back, he can feel a pair of eyes resting on him. And of course, because the universe really has it out for him, Mike Fucking Wheeler is staring back.

Mike raises his hand in the guise of a wave, and Will feels any words stick in his throat. He can still feel Lucas’ hand wrapped tightly around his shoulder. It helps.

He finds his words, even if those words are just, “Uh, hey.”

Mike replies with his signature wide smile. Will really would like to die now, please.

“Okay, okay, we can all have a grand catch up later, but we just missed previews and I am not missing the first five minutes again,” Lucas fixes Mike with a pointed look.

Mike holds up his hands in surrender, “Hey, don’t blame me. Dustin was the one who insisted stopping by his house to get snacks. Where, is Dustin anyways?”

Lucas is leading them to the screen, practically dragging Will whose legs stopped working long ago. “He said he was busy. Bailed last minute. Something about an impromptu trip to Canada?”

Will snorts and the other two don’t bat an eye. It’s so normal, so warm, that for a minute he forgets that he shouldn’t be there. That they hate him. That he hates him.

“Isn’t Max coming?” Will hisses to Lucas as they wedge themselves into three vacant seats.

Lucas just rolls his eyes, and mutters, “She broke up with me. Again. But who cares? I get a boy’s night out of it, so.”

The movie is good, better than the first time round. It’s nice, sat next to Lucas. Not quite as nice as sat next to El, but still.

He can’t stop glancing at Mike. The boy who should hate him. The boy who keeps offering him Jolly Ranchers. It’s all so confusing.

* * *

By the time they leave the theatre, it’s beginning to darken outside, the sky settling to a dusty navy. Will assumes they’ll part ways with amicable goodbyes but instead Lucas throws his arms around both their shoulders and declares, “Let’s go get pizza.”

They find themselves in a dirty Italian diner just opposite the cinema. The way Lucas and Mike greet the staff suggests they frequent this place quite a lot. The thought of that makes Will’s stomach writhe. He can’t place why.

Will has three dollars to his name, but when he tries to offer this out to Lucas, he flat out refuses. “We only need ten dollars to get a large pizza and soda. I got this one covered.”

Lucas goes up to order which means he’s left alone, with Mike. Silence seems to settle over the table. And really, Will is the odd one out. Will is the one throwing a wrench in their perfect routine. He should be the one to fix it.

“Do you… come here often?” It sounds like a bad pick-up line, but it’s something.

Mike snorts, playing with the ketchup bottle in front of him. “Yeah. Enough. It was Dustin who introduced us, he used to work here. We still get a discount because… well, we’re pretty much here every other night.”

“Why did Dustin quit?” Jobs are rare in Hawkins. People tend to hold onto the ones they’ve got.

“Quit?” Mike frowns, shaking his head. “He didn’t quit…” He takes in the puzzled look on Will’s face, then claps his hands together. “He didn’t tell you how he got fired? Aren’t you guys like, business partners now or something?”

Will doesn’t ask how Will knows about the new candy partnership. He just shakes his head and says, “No, he never told me.”

“Lucas, hurry up dude! We gotta get Will caught up on Dustin-mania!” Mike shouts. He looks so happy that Will can’t deny himself the chance to enjoy the night.

Between them, they demolish the pizza. Mike and Lucas tell every story spanning the last six years. All the breakups between Lucas and Max. Mike’s disastrous try-out for the football team. Dustin and the monkey.

Mike doesn’t ask about El once. Will doesn’t know whether he’s just forgotten, or that he trusts him to tell her. Either way, in that diner, with Lucas acting out Halloween ’87 and Mike blowing soda out his nose, he doesn’t care.

For the first time since middle school, he doesn’t think about what happens. One night, he barters with himself. One night to just forget and pretends everything is perfect again. That’s all he needs.

He offers Lucas a ride home. The offer extends to Mike, too, but he’s still in the restroom.

“Don’t worry, Mike’s got me covered. Thanks for the offer, though,” Lucas sounds apologetic which is bullshit, because Will should be the sorry one. For overstepping boundaries. For forcing his way into their night.

But then Lucas clasps his shoulder, lowers his voice and murmurs, “I’m really glad you came, Will.”

Those six words stop him from spiralling.

Will leaves before Mike comes out. Any goodbye would be too awkward, stilted by time and distance and Will being a prick all those years before. Plus, he’s not ready to say goodbye to tonight. If he leaves before then, maybe he can keep it.

He realises that’s foolish in the car ride home, but it doesn’t stop him from grinning like an idiot.

His mood is trampled by an anxious Joyce pacing on the porch.

The cars barely crawled to a stop when she’s wrenching the door open and dragging him into a tight embrace. She squeezes him so hard he can barely breathe.

Over her shoulder he can see the door opening and the porch being bathed in light. There are three figures in the doorway.

When his mom finally pulls away, her face is sheened with tears. Will feels his heart plummeting fifteen floors below.

“Where have you been?” she hisses, voice wavering on each word.

All Will can say through his confusion is, “the movies?”

* * *

“And you didn’t think to call? Just to let us know you weren’t dead in a ditch?”

That’s the chief, entering his eleventh minute of intense police lecturing. Will is staring at the table, noticing the way the wood makes lines in the top if it. Sometimes, he stares at his mug instead.

El reaches across to squeeze his hands. He manages a small smile for her.

“Hop,” That’s his mom. He glances up to see her hands resting on the chief’s arm, calming his erratic gestures, “Calm down. Will explained where he was. This is all just a misunderstanding.”

The chief huffs out a laugh, “You really think I’m gonna buy that you were at the movies?”

“Yes,” he’s being blunt, but he doesn’t care. He’s committed no crime. Why does he need an alibi? “Because I was at the movies.”

“Hop, this is pointless,” Joyce cuts in but he brushes her off.

"You've already seen Beetlejuice, why go again?"

"Dad," El's tone is like a warning. He ignores her.

“Who were you with?”

Will scowls and sinks down further in his seat. He can feel everyone eyes burning into him.

“Will?” his moms voice is softer than Hoppers. Laced with concern. It’s enough to crack him.

“Lucas Sinclair and Mike Wheeler,” he ignores the look burned into her eyes and instead turns to Hopper, “There. Are you happy now? Or do you need DNA samples? Witness statements?”

Hopper just sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. He looks tired, Will realises. He almost feels bad for him. Almost. “Just… call next time, kid. Would save us all a lot of trouble.”

* * *

Will is just folding his clothes when Jonathan finds him. His brother instantly wraps his arms around him and Will wastes no time in burying his face in his shoulder. Jonathan smells like pinewood and car oil. It’s reassuring.

“I can’t believe you called Hopper,” Will mutters into the embrace.

Jonathan just squeezes tighter, “We were just worried bud. Remember that time you fell off your bike and couldn’t walk home? You were soaking wet by the time we found you.”

“I’m not nine anymore.”

His brother pulls back, fixing him with a look. “Really? Because that sounds like something nine-year-old Will would say.”

Will laughs, trying to duck out of the conversation. Jonathan pushes on.

“Nine-year-old Will would also hang out with Mike Wheeler.”

“It’s a onetime thing, I promise you,” Will mutters, throwing himself onto his bed.

“Have you apologised?” Jonathan’s words carve into his skin. He says nothing. What is there to say? How could he ever apologise for all that shit?

“Maybe you could at least apologise to mom. She was sure you’d fled the state,” Jonathan’s lips quirk into a smile, but really, it’s not funny. It’s something Will would do.

Jonathan’s presence is replaced by El, who dumps a pile of sheets on the floor. “Joyce said I can sleep in here.”

“You sure your dad won’t mind?”

“He’s too tired to even care,” El admits, adjusting the sheets and settling down.

Will winces at her words, even though they’re not vicious. “Yeah. Sorry about that.”

El fixes him with a look. It’s one of her signatures. “Don’t apologise for doing something harmlessly stupid Will. That’s what being a teenager is all about.”

Will’s not so sure.

* * *

He lets El turn the lamp off when she’s ready. She had looked so tired around the kitchen table, gripping Will’s hand, so it’s no wonder she is so eager to get into bed.

Will is tired, sure. But he can also feel his stomach writhing with the thought of Mike.

“El?” he whispers into the darkness, because it’s now or never and he really needs to say something.

“Hmm?” she murmurs back, adjusting in her half-asleep state.

“Mike likes you.” He lets the words sit in the darkness. Tests to see how they make him feel. Feels nothing but a dark, empty void.

“What?” El’s voice is bleary with sleep. He can hear her rubbing at her eyes.

“Mike Wheeler. He likes you.”

He doesn’t know what he’s expecting. Its two in the morning and he’s talking in the dark like a coward.

El just rolls over, and murmurs, “Shut up and go to sleep, Will.”

He lets out a relieved laugh. Grateful he can finally sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone: *shows basic human kindness*  
> Will: Why are you being so nice to me?
> 
> Anyway, sorry that this chapter is a little late, I combined two chapters because it made it all flow much better. That's also why it's so long this time!!
> 
> Hope you enjoyed Mike actually being a decent guy and Will learning not to hate himself!!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "He wakes up to El’s face, not Jonathan’s, shaking him awake."

There’s an awkward silence settled over the Byers’ house when Will wakes up. A slight shift in his usual routine that renders everything completely different.

He wakes up to El’s face, not Jonathan’s, shaking him awake.

“Joyce said we have to be out the house in ten minutes if we don’t want to be late,” she explains in a revenant sort of whisper, as though school mornings are a holy ground not to be stepped on.

Will, for his part, just whines and tugs half-heartedly at his duvet. El has her fist closed around the material so tightly that it doesn’t budge. He admits defeat and shuffles after her to the kitchen.

It’s weird, Will thinks, how completely ordinary it looks. His mom and Hopper, sleepily buttering toast and reading the newspaper. El, throwing herself in a vacant seat and earning a smile from both of them. Jonathan, handing her a cup of orange juice as he tries to pull on his jacket. A snapshot of domestic bliss.

Will, for his part, backs out of the room, clutching the excuse of needing to get dressed.

His mom packs them both of to school by wrapping them in scarfs and handing them a thermostat of coffee each, as though they’re children heading to their first day of school. Any anger between him and Hopper seems to have dissipated, as he informs Will to “Drive safe, kid. Black ice is a silent killer.”

Any guilt Will felt from the night before vanishes with the kind smile the chief gives him.

El is dressed in a pair of battered chords stolen from Will and an oversized shirt Will can only assume is Jonathan’s. Or maybe it belonged to his dad, one of a few items abandoned in the house. He can’t recall ever seeing it before.

She curls up in the passenger seat as soon as Will starts the engine, picking at a loose thread on the shirt. She’s not sad, just quiet. Probably tired, Will reasons.

He watches the road. Thinks about how ironic it would be if they slipped on a patch of ice and veered off the road. Imagines letting go of the steering wheel. Decides he doesn’t like to think about that.

So instead he thinks about El, nursing her thermostat and watching the road more intently than him. He thinks of Mike Wheeler, watching her at the party. Thinks about how happy the two of them would look, together.

Will doesn’t often start the conversations. But today he takes a gamble.

“Did you sleep well?” He probes. A simple question. Unassuming.

El, as always, sees straight through him. She shrugs, then shifts in her seat so her eyes burn into the side of his head. “Is this about Mike Wheeler?”

“No,” Will deflects. “It’s about if you slept well.”

“Well, yes I did. Thank you,” El is smiling, smug, as she sinks back into her seat.

A silence settles over the car. Will tightens his grip on the steering wheel. Turns left.

Can think of nothing but Mike, smiling at him.

“Okay yes, this is about Mike Wheeler,” he’s not one for talking, but boy is he on fire today.

“Why are you so obsessed with Mike Wheeler?” It’s an innocent question. It feels like a sucker punch.

“I’m not obsessed. I’ve mentioned him twice.”

“Yes, you are. Will, I’m not stupid. I can see you staring at him when he’s talking to Lucas.”

“Maybe I’m looking at Lucas.”

“Will.”

“Anyway, this isn’t about me. This is about you and Mike.” He focuses on the task at hand.

El just snorts. “I’ve met the guy, what? Twice?”

“So… meet him again?”

“I don’t even know him. And he doesn’t know me. Trust me, you can’t like someone you’ve met twice. It’s called infatuation.”

“Then maybe he’s infatuated with you!” This is tireless. He thought it would be easy. Mike is everything a girl could ever want.

“Why are you fighting for Mike Wheeler?” El is frowning now, a deep crease forming in the centre of her forehead.

Will grapples for a reasoning. “Because… we’re friends.”

“Are you? Because I have never seen the two of you talk. After you’ve stopped staring at him you always have a little freak out and leave the room. And now suddenly you two are best friends? Somethings not adding up, Will.”

And there it is. There’s no way El knows, Will reasons with himself. But it still feels like a puncture wound, a dagger in between his ribs.

He doesn’t answer her, because he doesn’t know what to say. He just shifts away from her as they pull into their usual parking space.

Neither of them move. There’s no Max waiting outside, no threat of a confrontation with Lucas and Mike. So instead they just sit, each breathing shallowly.

“Will,” El’s voice is soft. Soothing, “please look at me.”

He does, even though he doesn’t feel like he can. Her eyes are there, wide and concerned as always.

“I’m sorry. I just- I want you to know. That if you want to talk to me about anything. You can. I’m always here to talk or to just… listen.”

He blinks, because he doesn’t trust his voice not to give way. El reaches out and squeezes his arm. It’s firm. Reassuring.

“El,” he calls, as she’s clambering out of the passenger seat and hugging the oversized shirt tight to her chest, “will you give Mike a try? Just talk to him or something? He’s a nice guy and… you deserve someone nice.”

Not someone like Will. Not someone that lies and hides and ruins everything.

El’s smile is small. She just shrugs, hand still gripping the car door. “I’ll think about it.”

The noise the door makes when it slams shut is deafening.

* * *

He stumbles through the rest of the day, finding it easier and easier to breathe. He knows now that it won’t be instantaneous, an easy as flipping a switch. Because El is bright and fierce and perceptive. She’s stubborn and hot-headed when she wants to be. She’s not the type to easily fall in love.

But she will, because her and Mike make a perfect couple. A weird sort of duo. The new kid maths whiz and the star track runner. Best friends with the popular stoner and the student president. If this was a Hollywood movie, that would be the perfect set up.

But Will knows life isn’t a movie. Jonathan told him that. Throwing up into a toilet night after night told him that. The tired look in his mom’s eyes taught him that. So, they’ll become a perfect little group and he’ll retreat back to being alone. Content in the knowledge that he’s done his good deed.

The lack of sleep catches up on in geometry and he nearly falls asleep three times when driving home. By some miracle he makes it, and slopes up the porch steps, ready to bury himself under his duvet.

His mom is sat at the kitchen table, hands clasped together, frown pinching at her face. Will blinks, checking he hasn’t drifted into insanity on the car ride home.

She looks up at him and offers a watery smile that immediately makes his stomach clench with guilt. He’s been happy, too happy. Eating lunch with Max and El today, skipping biology to run the candy store for Dustin. He’s been happy when clearly he should’ve been sad. Because his mom looks so sad right now.

“Is everything okay?” He hazards, backpack still slung over his shoulder.

She just pats the chair next to her, clasping his hand when he slowly sits. Up close, age is evident in her face. The caverns of wrinkles run across her forehead, deep and empty. Smile lines, she calls them. Will knows they’re really worry lines.

“I had some overtime to take off,” she tells him, squeezing his hand in a way he assumes is meant to be reassuring. It only freaks him out more. “And I realised we haven’t had a proper… chat, in a while.”

Will could laugh at that, he really could. They haven’t had a ‘proper chat’ since he was in middle school. They don’t ‘chat’. They put up with each other’s presence and try not to talk about anything that could make him spiral again.

He nods anyway. Slow but sure. Agreeing.

His mom’s smile stretches a little further, a little surer of itself on her face. She slides her fingers out from under his and goes to the kitchen cupboard just under the sink. He watches her rummage, watches her clench her fist triumphantly and emerge with a stack of brochures.

They land on the table with a satisfying thump. Will recoils from the sound.

By the time his mom sits back down, her smile has grown and she’s red in the face. “I kept them from when Jonathan was looking. Just in case.”

Will reaches forward. His fingers curl around the prospectus on the top of the pile. It’s heavy to hold, a bound leather, dark brown. Yale. He doesn’t touch a single page, instead reaching for the next one. Indiana University. This one is faded, pages folding in wards. Another. NYU. He opens this one. Flicks to a random page and stares at the letters that don’t seem to form any words.

His eyes flicker back to his mom, who is watching him with some sort of – pride? It’s hard for him to tell. He doesn’t see it very often.

She clears her throat. “I thought it was about time you started looking. You’re a senior now, you’ll be applying soon. Very soon, actually. Oh god, when did that happen?”

Will cuts off her light chuckle, brochure still clutched to his chest. “I’m not going to college, mom.”

Her face doesn’t fall. Its carefully sculpted as it is. An attempt not to show emotion, not to upset him. She does pause though, carefully deliberating her words. “Well, I know it wasn’t exactly in your plan a few years ago… but you’ve been doing so well in school recently, making friends, getting A’s again and I just thought that maybe… your plans had shifted again.”

“Well, they haven’t,” he drops the brochure in his hands, pushing it back into the pile in the centre of the table.

His mom’s eyebrows seem to contort along with the rest of her face. He averts his gaze to the refrigerator instead. “Why don’t you just have a look? You never know.”

“I do know. Jonathan didn’t go to college, you didn’t go to college, and you’re both fine.”

She laughs, short and empty. “I wouldn’t say a dead-end job is fine, Will. You’re bright, brighter than I ever was, you could actually go to college.”

“But I’m not bright,” he protests. Everything in his chest aches. Why can’t she just get it? “I’m not who I was in middle school, mom. Not anymore.”

There is the sound of a chair scraping, and suddenly Will can feel her hand on his arm. Warm and stable. His stare on the refrigerator doesn’t waver.

“Yes, Will. You are. You’re still that funny, clever, talented, kind little boy that I raised. Yeah, you got a bit lost. And life got in the way. And you started telling yourself that you’re not that person, but you are. I see him in you, all the time. I see him when you help Jonathan with the dishes. When you talk to El on the phone. When you make me a pot of coffee without asking first. I see him every single day. That boy is my son. That boy is you.”

Will blinks. Hard. Tries to chase away the tears in his eyes. Tries to feel nothing.

Secretly, he’s glad when the feeling doesn’t go away.

The pressure on his arms goes away and he can hear the sound of the tap, gushing against the metal base of the kettle.

His mom’s voice is misty, and slightly cracked. “So, are you gonna tell me when you started hanging around with Mike and Lucas again? When did they finally come to their senses?”

And despite everything, Will laughs at that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been too long since my last upload, but I'm back with this chapter that has very little plot and is mainly just characters interacting.
> 
> I'm not very confident with dialogue so this was an interesting challenge for me.
> 
> Also, I revised my plan and it's now up to 14 chapters which means this is currently the halfway point!! Cool!!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Max is having a Halloween party.” It’s El’s voice, loud and clear.  
> Will pulls the chord as far as it’ll go to get away from the living room. “Well, hello to you too.”

“Max is having a Halloween party.” It’s El’s voice, loud and clear.

It’s the last thing Will is expecting to hear tonight. They had said their goodbyes earlier, at the school gate, Hopper’s Beamer looming in the distance. Then they had peeled off their separate ways.

El had headed home to spend the weekend split between watching reruns with her dad and doing homework. And Will had headed home to complete a Byer’s tradition.

Every Halloween since Middle School, the Byers have spent the night watching bad horror movies on VHS. The night would be spent inhaling as many unhealthy snacks as possible, squashed between his mom and brother, until he fell asleep lolling against one of their shoulders.

But Halloween ’88 had been interrupted before it had even begun. With a certain El, and Will’s inability to ignore her.

Will pulls the chord as far as it’ll go to get away from the living room. “Well, hello to you too.”

He can practically hear the eye roll over the phone. “Will, pay attention. This is an emergency.”

“How do you know this is me? What if it was my mom?” He mock-gasps, pressing his back to the wall, “Oh boy, you’d be in trouble then-”

“Will!”

He gives in, “Okay, I’ll bite. What’s the emergency?”

“I don’t have a costume.” El sounds impatient, but still soft, and gentle. Her signature sound.

“Why? That’s like rule number one of Halloween party etiquette.” At least, he assumes it is. The last Halloween party he went to was at the Wheeler residence. In elementary school.

“I know but I only just found out this was happening ten minutes ago.”

“Aren’t you and Max like, inseparable? I thought you’d be the first person she’d invite. Besides Lucas. But I don’t really know what their status is right now.” He trails off. High school drama. No wonder he stayed away from it for so long.

“We are. She only found out ten minutes ago too.”

Will frowns, playing with the chord between his fingers, “How does that work?”

“It’s a last minute party. Her mom and step-dad went to visit her sick aunt in Utah and Max has got the place to herself.”

“So, how can I help you on the costume front?”

“You’re like a horror nerd, right?”

“Me? God no. I’ve seen a few, but I’m definitely not a connoisseur. You’d be better off asking Dustin. Or…” he trails off.

El knows what he’s thinking, of course she does. She’s practically psychic. “I swear to God if you mention Mike Wheeler-”

“I thought you two had fun on your…” He can’t call it a date. El would kill him. It would kill him to say it. “Get together.”

It happened last Friday. El had been begging Max to take her to arcade for months and they had settled on a date when Max pulled out. And because Mike Wheeler is a prince and a knight in shining armour rolled in to one, he’d offered to take her.

El refused to talk about. Clammed up when Will tried to mention it on Monday. He’d let it drop and turned to other sources. Namely Lucas, who said that Mike thought it went great and that Chief Hopper is the spawn of Satan.

Will doesn’t know what any of it means. For him, or Mike or El. He stills trying to work it out.

“You promised we wouldn’t talk about this.” El’s voice has an edge to it, so he gives in.

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“So can you help me with my costume or not?”

He glances to Jonathan and his mom squashed onto the sofa, popcorn resting on the table in front of him. He sighs. “Okay. Sure.”

El practically squeals. “Great, I’ll be round in like, ten minutes. Hey, maybe we could do matching?”

“Wait-”

“Yes, you’re coming with me, you idiot.”

“Do I get a say in this?”

El pretends to think, humming to herself. “Uh… nope.”

Will is grinning when he hangs up.

* * *

Sometimes, life can take a very different turn than you are expecting.

Will never expected to be the one breaking the Byer’s Halloween tradition. He expected Jonathan to be the one, when he jetted off to college. Or his mom, taking on an extra shift to scrape together some cash to repair the cars exhaust pipe.

He certainly doesn’t expect it to be him. And not dressed as Marty McFly, standing next to a girl.

When El had arrived, Will had been in the middle of cultivating costumes. Horror had gone out of the window long ago, along with a high budget and a chance to go out and buy costumes. He’d realised, after scavenging through both his and Jonathan’s wardrobe that he could build enough components to be a pretty crap Marty McFly. He’d just need to borrow Max’s skateboard and the vision would be complete.

El had laughed at the outfit, but in the best way. Fondly, gently. Like a friend would.

Together they had raided his mom’s wardrobe and found amongst the many pairs of battered jeans, a washed out light pink dress. It was a little baggy on El, but they secured it with a hair pin until she resembled Baby from Dirty Dancing.

His mom loves the costume. Will isn’t so sure.

Jonathan makes them both stop for pictures, despite the fact that they’re already late to the makeshift party. It doesn’t matter anyway, because El can’t stop giggling and Will finds his face being forced into a smile against his control.

They walk to the party, to save Will from driving. “Parties are much more fun when there’s alcohol involved,” El insists, grabbing his arm to pull him faster. He is happy to oblige.

Max’s house is practically vibrating by the time they get there. It makes will blanche at the thought of all those bodies and the whispered secrets they carry. But with El pulling him through the swirling crowds and through the front door, he can bear it.

They see Lucas and Max first. They’re holding hands, which is a good thing because now Will knows where he stands.

Max is wearing a purple suit, which clenches and flows at weird places, like it’s built for a man. “It’s Prince?” she explains when she catches him staring. He just nods, because only Max would go for a costume like that.

Lucas’ is easier to understand. A leather vest, makeshift whip and explorer hat loudly declares him as Indiana Jones. He pulls Will into a tight hug, clapping him on the shoulder. “I like your costume, dude. You’re missing your skateboard, though.”

He laughs, trying to get his throat to stop sticking. Three months ago, he’d never been to a real party. And now he’s at his second. With Lucas Sinclair. Life is bizarre.

“I was gonna borrow one from your girlfriend.”

“That’s probably not a good idea,” he returns the laughter, “She’d kill you. Come on dude, I got something to show you.”

Will glances over his shoulder but finds the air there vacant, El and Max long gone. So much for his security blanket. The last time he split up from her at a party he ended up being unable to breathe.

But then Lucas is grabbing his sleeve and pulling him upstairs before he even has time to react. So he just goes with it.

Max’s house is maze. And very clearly haunted. Like something directly out of the shining. Every door they pass seems to be the wrong one and Lucas keeps walking until they reach the end of the hallway.

The room they enter is tiny, and void of furniture. The only sign of life is the freshly applied wallpaper and the sickening smell of lavender.

And the teenage boys sprawled on the floor.

If the window in the room was bigger than three inches, Will would definitely be throwing himself out of it right now.

Lucas he can deal with. Dustin is a character but he’s alright. He can even cope with being around Mike, for short periods of time.

But seeing them altogether in one room is too much.

The two of them are laid out, bodies curving around a pile of candy and board games sat in the centre. Mike is eating, lazily throwing handfuls of popcorn into his mouth, while Dustin seems to be trying to rewire something, pulling at the red and blues inside the small metal box. They both look up when they hear footfalls. Mike raises his hand in a lazy wave, before immediately pulling Lucas over to where he is sprawled.

Dustin, however, drops the device in his hand and clambers to his feet, greeting Will like an old friend. Which he is, in a way.

“Will the Wise!” Dustin’s hugs have always been bone crushing at the best of times but now it feels like he’s trying to kill him.

“Uh, hey,” Will returns, which is generous given the circumstances. He thinks ‘What The Fuck?’ would be more appropriate. He glances down, taking in Dustin’s costume. “What are you… dressed as?”

Lucas pinches the bridge of his nose and throws himself on the ground next to Mike. “Something from an obscure Swedish film that no one as seen.”

“Hey, my costumes cool.” Dustin pulls at the white cotton sheet stained with blood.

Lucas just groans, “No, it’s not. It’s nerdy.”

It’s a conversation he’s witnessed hundreds of times before. In the back of Dustin’s mom’s car on the way to Six Flags. In Mike’s basement. In the quarry, bikes discarded a few meters away. It’s all achingly familiar in the worst way.

The room stinks of lavender and teenage boys and the party. Will can’t stay there a minute longer than he has to. The doors still sat open on its hinges, an invitation for escape.

But Dustin is sitting back down, and he can feel Lucas’ eyes burning into his neck, so he sits down too. Tentatively. Knees pressed to chest. Lodged between Dustin and Mike Fucking Wheeler.

Lucas is reaching towards the pile and dragging out a board game. Not D&D (thank god. Will would’ve had an aneurism) but Risk. A game just as long and complicated. He’s played it with Jonathan before, but they never completed a round. Normally it was work that pulled his brother away from the game, but sometimes it was him and his inability to focus on anything.

Mike groans and leans back on his arms. Will tries not to look at him and instead focuses on the faded box of the game and trying not to explode.

“Come on dude, it’s tradition,” Dustin protests, reaching forward to peel the board out of the box.

“It’s a stupid tradition,” Mike insists, but he still reaches forward to help Dustin set up.

Will doesn’t know when their game faded from D&D to Risk. Or when he became excluded from the tradition. But he obliges anyway, because Lucas dragged him here and Dustin keeps smiling at him and it’s just so grounding to have Mike by his side again.

They help Will play. He’s an amateur, especially compared to Lucas who seems to be some kind of a professional. He gladly drinks from the bottle of bright blue liquid that is being passed around until he feels a pleasant kind of buzz, a warmth in the pit of his stomach. He finds himself laughing with ease as Lucas destroys another battlement and Dustin tries to find the most convoluted ways to conquer.

They’re halfway through the game when he feels a voice in his ear. It’s soft and deep, smooth like honey. It makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand to attention.

“I like your costume.” The voice belongs to Mike, who is leaning towards him. Will forces himself to turn to look at the other boy. They’re so close but the distance doesn’t feel foreign. It’s as if the drink and the game have melted away time.

“Thanks,” Will returns, voice just as breathless. Mike smiles at him, small but genuine, and it prompts him to push further. “Do you guys… play a lot?”

Mike’s fist has closed around the bottle which Lucas placed at his side. He takes a drink and offers it out to Will, who gladly accepts. “No, not really. Lucas does, he’s part of this club thing on the weekends. Me and Dustin just play on special occasions, like Halloween. You?”  


“No,” Will shakes his head quickly, “I don’t play at all. I mean, I used to with Jonathan a little, but. No.”

“Not Risk. Do you still play D&D?” Mike is staring at him, their eyes fixed together. This is more attention than Will’s got from him in years. He doesn’t deserve it. It’s intoxicating.

He swallows hard, and shakes his head. “It’s hard to. Without a party.”

Mike drops the gaze, turning instead to stare at the board. He nods too, slow and unsure. “Yeah, I found that as well.”

There’s so many questions Will wants to ask. Why did they let the party fall apart without him? Why didn’t Mike keep playing? Why is he talking to Will?

He opens his mouth to ask something, anything, but then there are two bodies in the doorway and all eyes turn to them.

“There you are,” It’s Max’s voice, loud and abrasive. Her arms are folded across her chest, gaze fixed on Lucas. El stands behind her, looking less sure of herself. Will tries to smile at her but realises she’s only looking at Mike. His heart sinks a little.

Lucas rolls his eyes and pulls himself to his feet, “We were just playing our annual game,” he explains, closing the gap between him and Max, wrapping his arms around her waist.

“Come on Stalker,” she replies, grabbing his wrist and pulling him out of the door, “You promised me a dance.”

Lucas waves a rapid goodbye as the two of them disappear around the corner.

It just leaves El in the doorway, arms wrapped around her torso, shifting uncomfortably in Joyce’s dress. The silence is quickly filled with her blurting out, “What are you wearing?”

The question is seemingly directed at Mike, who tugs at his Letterman jacket half-heartedly. “I’m the athlete… from The Breakfast Club?”

El laughs lightly. Mike’s face seems to light up at that. Will’s heart just breaks in two. “That is the laziest costume I have ever seen.”

“No it’s not,” Mike protests defensively, “It’s cool!”

“It’s boring,” El corrects. She shifts a little. Smooths down her skirt.

The room is silent and bristling. Dustin doesn’t seem to notice, fiddling again with the device Will has now realised is an old Walkie Talkie.

Which just leaves El and Mike, staring at each other. and Will watching them.

After a few moments of silence, El rolls her eyes. “Are you going to ask me to dance or what?”

The question is simple, and it breaks Will’s heart. Mike, however, leaps to his feet and practically bounds towards her like a puppy dog. El just laughs as he weaves his arm through hers and begins to pull her down the corridor.

She shoots a smile to Will over her shoulder, and he forces one back, leaning against the door-frame. After all, he wanted this. He wanted the two of them together. He wanted Mike to be happy. He wanted to make El smile.

It’s only when it’s happening that he realises he didn’t want this at all.

Dustin claps him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, Will the Wise. There’s plenty of girls’ downstairs. We’ll find someone for you to dance with.”

Will just nods as he watches the only person he wants to dance with disappear around the corner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapter in two days?? From me?? Who would've thought??
> 
> Also I've typed Mike Fucking Wheeler so much I'm incapable of writing it the normal way now lmao.
> 
> I really enjoyed writing this chapter but the next one is the one I'm most excited for. It was also really fun to figure out what each party member would wear for Halloween. I knew Max had to wear the coolest costume because and I love the idea of her in Prince's purple suit.
> 
> Thank you for reading and for all your kind words!!


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The last person who he expects to see on his doorstep is Max. She raises her hand to wave when she sees Will in the door-way, ignoring his bewildered expression entirely."

Will cherishes his Saturdays alone.

They don’t happen often, only about once or twice every three months, but to Will they are an oasis of joy. He normally spends them with the curtains drawn in his room, blasting the loudest music he can scavenge from Jonathan’s room and eating cereal straight from the box. It’s heaven.

This particularly free Saturday is a bi-product of the impending threat of Christmas. Both his mom and Jonathan are working extra shifts to cover the costs of the festive season. Will should hate it, but really, being alone is like heroin to him. So he doesn’t complain.

He wakes up long after they’ve both gone, and finds himself unwilling to stay in his dark bedroom. Instead he gets dressed and makes himself eggs. He eats them at the kitchen table, staring at the college brochures that sit in the centre.

They’re his own personal Everest. He’s read through them all more times than he can count, but always leaves them on the table. He can’t admit that they’re what he wants, because he can’t have them. Not with his grades the way they are.

He’s pulled from the downwards spiral by a sharp, persistent knock. He sighs and stands up, chair scraping across the floor, shoving his plate in the sink of the way to the door.

The last person who he expects to see on his doorstep is Max.

It’s November, but she’s not wearing a coat. Just a faded red zip-up and a pair of jeans that are torn at the knee. Her hair is pulled back into two sharp braids, looking more tamed than Will has ever seen it. she’s rubbing her fingers together and blowing into her cupped hands, despite the fact that she’s wearing blue fingerless gloves.

She raises her hand to a wave when she sees Will in the door-way, ignoring his bewildered expression entirely.

“Hey, Byers. I’m glad this is the right house. I mean, I was pretty sure.” She’s smirking, peering over his shoulder, eyes darting around the threadbare interior of the Byer’s residence. Will feels like slamming the door in her face.

Instead he asks, calmly and rationally, “how did you get my address?”

“From El.” She’s rocking back on her heels now, eyes darting around the porch restlessly. “This place is creepy. Is it haunted?”

Will just scoffs. It sounds harsher than he had intended. “Says you. Your house is straight out of the shining.”

Her eyes dart back to him, eyebrow quirking. “Touché, Byers,” she throws the words out and then pivots on her heels, as if to leave. When Will doesn’t follow after a couple of strides she pauses and glances back to him over her shoulder, “Well? You coming or what?”

“Coming where?” he shouts back but she just keeps walking, hands in her pockets, turning around and striding backwards every now and then.

Will glances back at the warmth of the kitchen and the stack of college brochures and lets out a groan.

* * *

He’s still struggling into his coat when he catches up with her. He’s breathless and panting, simultaneously warm and freezing. He fiddles with the zipper until it stops snagging and draws it all the way to his chin.

Max isn’t watching him. She’s marching straight ahead. She always looks determined, but now she looks more focused, like there’s a task to complete.

Will tries again. “Where are we going?”

“Why would I ruin the mystery?” She returns, smiling widening and pace quickening. Will struggles to keep up.

In the end, they find themselves on top of a hill.

“It’s the highest point in Hawkins,” she explains, dropping to her knees on the grass which sheens with frost. She’s red in the face, lips tinged blue, but she’s still smiling as Will falls in place next to her.

He must admit, it’s beautiful. The industry of Hawkins melts away from this distance, instead rolling into a picture-perfect American town beneath their feet. His eyes catch on landmarks he knows. His mom’s shop. The Hawkins Post. The abandoned mall that never seemed to take off.

Will has to drag his eyes off the view to look instead at Max. All her determination to reach their destination has faded away. She looks sad, Will observes. Sad and small. If he squints, she looks like he does in the mirror.

“What are we doing here?” He asks, careful to keep his tone precise and measured. Just like El would.

Max just shrugs, eyes still skimming over the horizon, “I just think it’s cool. I wanted to come here again before winter.”

She extends her arm out in front of the both of them, finger jabbing at a spot in the horizon. “The airport is that way. 40 Miles out. That’s the first thing I saw of Indiana when we landed.”

He follows her finger as she moves it further into Hawkins. “That’s Dustin’s house. The third week I was here I fell of my board just outside. He gave me a first aid kit.”

“It’s interesting,” her voice drops to an almost whisper as she lowers her arm. “It all looks so small from up here. So fragile and delicate. One slip and it could all just crack.”

Will tilts his head to look at her. It’s the first time he’s looked at her, really looked at her, since their first science class. Her freckles are marred by a thin white scar that looks like a tree branch, stretching across her nose. Her face sits in a scowl, a perpetual look of distain. But something in her eyes is so alive, in a way he can’t begin to describe.

He wraps his arms around his legs and holds himself. “Why me?”

She shrugs, smile playing at her features, “El was busy.”

“But why me? Why not Lucas?”

“We broke up,” she doesn’t sound heartbroken about it, but he doesn’t push.

“We’re not even friends, Max.” He doesn’t mean to sound harsh and bitter. He must just be a natural.

Max sounds small. “I know that. It’s my fault, that we’re not friends. I shouldn’t have been such a dick to you.”

“You weren’t-”

“Yes,” she persists, “I was. I let some stupid idiot boy drama get in the way of being friends with you. And that was so stupid of me but-”

He finishes the sentence for her, “You didn’t want to be friends with me. You didn’t want to get the reputation of being friends with the school freak.”

She shakes her head, exhaling slowly. Tests the water again, and settles on, “I don’t think you’re a freak. For the record, I never did. And neither did Lucas or Dustin or any of those guys.”

Will disagrees. He doesn’t say anything.

There’s nothing but the static of the air, carried across the wind.

Then, after a pause, there’s just Max, murmuring her words into the air. “I just thought you’d understand. You’re the only one who understands.”

He swallows the protest in his throat and nods. Watches the buildings growing smaller and smaller in his peripheral. Because he does understand, all too well, and it makes him ache.

He knows the feeling of being small. Of feeling so fragile that you might just crack at any given moment. Of walking around like you’re not made of glass.

Max knows too. Judging by the way she stares at the shrinking buildings and grabs onto his hand like she might just float away if she’s not tethered down.

He doesn’t want to make the past hurt more, or the future break before they get there, so he says nothing.

The girl next to him lets go of his hand and closes her fingers around a box of cigarettes nestled in her pocket. Lights the end of one with a cracked lighter. Clings to it like a safety blanket.

“Plus,” Max’s voice is stronger now. Sadness washes away temporarily. “I thought you could use a friend, Byers.”

He has to laugh at that, but the laughter sticks in his throat. In some ways, he wants to protest. When has he ever needed friends? He would’ve said that at the start of the year. But he’s weakened since then. Become susceptible to El and Max. Sometimes even to Mike Wheeler and his gentle eyes.

After everything he’s done, the universe has given him friends again. He really doesn’t deserve that.

“I do have friends,” he protests weakly instead.

“I saw all those college brochures. To get into half those places you wouldn’t be able to have a social life for the rest of the year.”

She’s joking, but he stiffens. His copy of the NYU prospectus is more worn than when Jonathan owned it. His heart aches for that city and that college. Right now, his grades only serve as a barrier.

She offers her cigarette out to him, effectively cutting off his destructive inner monologue. He accepts it gratefully. “What about you? What do you wanna do after high school?”

“Who the hell knows?” She throws her hands into the air, as if in the midst of a Shakespearean soliloquy. “The world is my oyster. I want to travel first. See a bit of the world. Live a little. I’ve spent so much of my life in Hawkins that I can’t even remember what the sea is like. Which sucks.”

“And after travelling?” He prompts.

She just smiles wistfully, “That’s a long way away yet, Byers.”

“Who are you gonna travel with?”

“Maybe I’ll travel alone. Be as free as a bird,” it’s a joke but underneath it sounds sincere.

“What about Lucas? Isn’t he like, your official wing-man?”

Max laughs, “Lucas has his heart set on Harvard. He’s already done this summer school scheme. He’s a shoo-in. Which is fine for him but it’s really not my thing.”

“I thought you were like some, science pro?”

“Maybe I could be if I tried. Or if I wanted to be. But here’s the thing, Byers,” she shuffles closer to him till her words are only a whisper in the wind, “I really can’t be bothered.”

Will snorts. Pauses. Then turns to Max. “Maybe I could come with you. To travel, I mean.”

“I might just have to take you up on that,” Max replies, nudging him gently with her knees.

* * *

By the time they leave the hill, the air is already dark and crisp. Will offers Max his coat, which she declines, instead opting to hug her jacket as close to her body as it will go.

It’s Max who brings it up, scuffing her shoes against the side-walk. “I think it’s time you let go of the past, Byers.”

He glances at her sideways and keeps walking. “Who says I haven’t let go of the past?”

“The look of guilt on your face every time you’re having fun. The way you can’t meet Lucas’ eye.” she lists, her gaze not wavering.

He swallows hard. Tries to brush her off. “It’s not as easy as just… letting go.”

“Who says it isn’t?”

“Me,” his voice is short and impatient. But Max wasn’t there. She doesn’t know the half of it, not really. “I do. There are so many things I have to put right before I can even think about ‘letting go’.”

“Okay… then maybe it’s time you put those things right.”

“Max-”

“No, I’m serious.” She cuts him off abruptly. “It’s senior year Will. Isn’t it time to try and fix things?”

A silence washes over the pair of them. They’re at Will’s front door now, bathed in the watery yellow porch lights. Max won’t stop staring like he’s important. It’s a new sensation.

“Come and sit with us. I know, it doesn’t fix all of this. But… it’s a start?”

Wil’s really too tired to protest. It’s been a long day. It’s been a long six years. So he just nods in begrudging agreement and reaches for the door handle.

“Will.” He’s halfway in the house when her words reach him. He stops to glance at her, enveloped in darkness, halfway down the road. “It was nice to see you.”

And when he returns the compliment, he actually means it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really liked writing this chapter because Will and Max are my two favourite characters and I imagine them having a very interesting dynamic.
> 
> Also this could be seen as Elmax if you squint very very hard lmao. I always struggle with romantic relationships in fics because I feel like people put a lot of pressure on it, expecting fairy-tale endings, which my writing is definitely not about. I like realism so pls don't get your hopes up too much!!
> 
> Things will definitely be happening in the next couple of chapters. I still can't believe how far through we are!! It's crazy!!


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It’s eleven good days before he realises there hasn’t been a bad day. No shaky hands, no flinches when Lucas throws an arm around his shoulder. Eleven days of keeping his food down and looking Dustin in the eye and laughing at jokes. They’re not perfect, clear cut days. Sometimes they still feel foggy, as though there’s an invisible hand squeezing his gut. But the feeling is always subsided by El squeezing his hand, or Jonathan nudging him in the ribs as they do the dishes."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW; some mention of self-harm but it's not particularly graphic and there's no blood involved.

Max is true to her word when he gets to school on Monday.

Will doesn’t know what he’s expecting, because Max is nothing if not stubborn. She must have memorised El’s timetable off by heart (which seems a little obsessive) because she corners the two of them by their lockers at lunch.

“You two are coming to have lunch with Lucas and me, right?” It’s a question, but it’s not. It’s too firm, and her eyes are flickering intently between the two of them.

El shakes her head in an apologetic sort of way and hooks her arm through Will’s. It’s gonna look odd, Will thinks, when her and Mike finally get their act together and start dating.

“I’ve tried to get Will to eat lunch in the cafeteria for ages,” El is saying. Will is an outsider in this conversation between two best friends. “He refuses. Says it’s a cesspit. I think he’s just scared of anyone taller than him.”

Max laughs, and Will tries to, but he knows what’s coming. The taller, ginger girl raises an eyebrow, fixing him with a solid stare. “What do you say Will? Time to break an old habit?”

He has nothing left to say other than a withered, “I guess.”

The look El gives them as they walk to the lunch hall is enough to make him melt.

It’s awkward and clumsy at first. Max and Lucas seem to eat lunch with half the school, so there are hurried introductions. Some of them greet him like an old friend, others like an old foe. He tries to smile at everyone, even the girl he hears whispering “freaky Will Byers” to the boy next to her.

He ends up wedged between El and a boy called Richard he vaguely recalls from middle school. If he’s honest, the entire time is a mess in his memories. But Richard likes to talk, and specifically about their middle school geography teacher, so Will plays along and struggles to recall certain memories.

When lunch times over, he feels Max nudging him in the ribs. She mouths “Same time tomorrow?” and he resists the urge to flip her off.

Instead the next day he heads straight there and slumps down in a seat before he has to be escorted.

It’s five days before Mike appears.

Will isn’t expecting him. He doesn’t know why. This was always Mike’s terrain, his stomping ground. But he assumed, for some reason, that Mike would sit with his film club. The track team. Footballers, maybe.

Instead he slumps down in a seat next to Lucas and starts whining, unprompted, about a book report due before the break.

Will finds himself watching Mike’s every move, like he’s an animal who might attack. It’s unsettling, he thinks, to be so near someone who hates him. Still, he smiles and talks to a girl called Harriett who keeps asking him to go to the multiplex with her.

Mike’s there every day after. Whining to Lucas. Ribbing Max. Occasionally saying hi to Will. Always, always, staring at El the same way Will stares at him. It shouldn’t hurt as much as it does.

* * *

It’s eleven good days before he realises there hasn’t been a bad day. No shaky hands, no flinches when Lucas throws an arm around his shoulder. Eleven days of keeping his food down and looking Dustin in the eye and laughing at jokes. They’re not perfect, clear cut days. Sometimes they still feel foggy, as though there’s an invisible hand squeezing his gut. But the feeling is always subsided by El squeezing his hand, or Jonathan nudging him in the ribs as they do the dishes.

Or just a glimpse of Mike, shorts curling around his thighs.

The first bad day comes just as school is rounding up for the break.

When he wakes up, his mind is cluttered. Normally all he wants to do on a morning is drag the covers over his head and push a little further into sleep until Jonathan has to drag him from bed. But on this day, he’s awake before both his mom and Jonathan. He lies in bed for a while, eyes darting around the ceiling, counting the scuffs in the paint work.

There are no bad thoughts, just restless ones. The half-completed homework due second period, glaring at him from his desk. El, and if she’ll be waiting for him in the cold if he’s running late. Max, and her constant questions.

His legs refuse to sit still for much long and he finds himself dressed and in the kitchen by 6:15. The house is dead at this time, the usual creaks and aches stilling in the morning air. Will sits in his usual seat at the table. Raps his fingers against the table. Waits.

His mom is there first. She always is, thought Will is rarely there to see it. she starts when she sees him, but smiles through the sleep still etched on her face. She scrubs at her eyes with her hands and pulls at the fridge door.

Will smiles back at her. He’s been doing that a lot recently. Smiling back at people without much thought. It would scare him, but it makes him feel so warm inside, so he lets it pass.

“How did you sleep?” she has a bottle of milk in one hand and jam in the other. She puts them down on the table. In the near silence the noise is deafening.

Will shrugs. He’s still not a man of many words.

They eat their breakfast in compatible silence, bar the occasional scrape of a knife against toast. It’s nice, though Will would never admit that. Nice to eat without it turning him inside out. Nice to eat without his mom gnawing at her bottom lip with worry.

She squeezes his hand when he leaves the table. It must’ve been nice for her too.

The rest of the day seems normal. Or Will’s new version of normal, at least.

He picks El up for school, pulling up three minutes early. She seizes control of the radio and fills the car with the sound of Madonna, ribbing Will when he finds himself unintentionally humming along to the words. Normal.

Will has English with Max third period. He lends her his book when she tells him she’s forgotten hers and he doesn’t press about the bags under her eyes. She rewards him by siphoning half a pack of cigarettes into his backpack. Normal.

He eats lunch with her friends. The normal crowd. Mike is there, but he’s the other end of the table. He keeps passing notes down to El, irritating doodles scrawled on the back of his maths homework. Will is sat between them, ferrying the notes and trying to ignore the way jealousy twists his gut. It’s worth it, for the way El smiles and rolls her eyes. The way Mike grins when she finally meets his eyes.

It’s all so normal and mundane now, in a way Will never expected.

What he doesn’t expect is the way Lucas slaps his shoulder and says, “Have a good holiday, dude.”

It catches him by surprise, like a bullet lodging itself into his rib cage. He’d been so caught up in the cycle of lunches and car rides and Mike’s stupid grin that he’d forgotten about the impending festive season.

He forces himself to breathe, to nod and to send the same good wishes back to Lucas.

He finds his way to the lockers and presses himself up against the cool metal. It’s grounding, and helps him to breathe again. Around him students filter in and out of classrooms, final period looming on the horizon. It suddenly hits him that that’s it. By the time they break up, they’ll be done with him. They were only humouring him, anyhow. Playing with him was a fun pastime.

But they’ll forget. Holidays are a perfect time for forgetting. The summer between 6th grade and 7th had been the prime for forgetting. Everyone had forgotten about Will by the time they got back. Forgotten about his outburst and his anger and the way he had screamed.

They’ll forget again. It hurts just as bad as the first time. A sharp pain in the epicentre of his heart, blossoming outwards.

It’s all his fault again. Except this time, he let himself be hurt. He let Max with her kind hands and broken words talk him into opening up. He let El into the passenger seat of her car and she’ll let herself back out again.

He let Mike look at him with those eyes and make him feel things again.

He hates himself for it.

He can numbly feel his fingernails embedding themselves in the skin of his palms. The pain feels nice. Refreshing. He lifts his balled up fists to his head, driving them against his skull. He can feel eyes on him, but none of the eyes do anything. They just watch.

It isn’t his first breakdown in school, and the thought of that is pitiful. He can feel any progress made in the last five years unravelling in his hand like a ball of yarn.

Then there are arms on his, freezing them effectively on their route to destruction. He blinks away the tears blurring his vision, making out the gentle lines and slopes of a boy about his height. Lucas.

Lucas’ face is etched with an emotion Will can’t place. A mixture of confusion, disgust and concern. The concoction is sickening.

Lucas is talking to him, but Will can’t make out any of the words, no matter how hard he concentrates on his lips. Lucas has nice lips, he realises. And strong arms that are currently the only thing standing between him and the floor.

He’s never felt weaker. The thought makes him reach up to try spill his own brains again. Lucas holds his arms down and suddenly the noise of the corridor is deafening. He can feel the dozens of eyes branding his skin, Lucas’ stronger than anything.

He struggles out of the other boy’s grip, half-crawling half-ducking out of the arms that encircle him.

“Will, are you okay? Did someone hurt you?” Of course Lucas’ first assumption is that he was destroyed at the hands of someone else. Lucas still refuses to see the worst in him, even though he’s witnessed it first-hand.

Will shakes his head venomously. Drags a hand across his face. Finds the words bubbling in his throat, fully-formed. “Tell your girlfriend that I did what she told me to. I played her little game. And now I’m done with it. I’m done with it.”

He spits the last few words and turns on his heel before he can hear the next words from Lucas.

By some miracle, he finds his car and practically collapses inside it. He curls up in the driver’s seat and presses the heels of his hands to his eyes. He’s trying to cut of the tear flow but they just seem to keep coming, faster and faster until there are none left.

After the tears are gone he sits in a numb silence. There’s still half an hour left of last period. He could make it to European History. Make up some excuse. Or he could start the engine and drive as far away as the gas allows.

He does neither. He waits in the parking lot, gripping the steering wheel tightly.

* * *

He doesn’t know how long it is before the car door next to him open. Time escapes him, but he supposes it must be within an hour.

He hears her before he sees her. Gentle footfall. The sound of scratching on the polystyrene seat. Heavy breathing. He forces himself to look at her.

El. She’s red in the face, like the day they went hiking and got caught in the rain. She’s not laughing like she was then. She looks solemn, but her eyes are wide and there’s the concern again, the concern that makes him want to scream.

She doesn’t say anything. Normally that’s her job, but in the absence of a voice, Will fills the role.

“How did you find me?”

“Lucas.” A one-word explanation, but it’s enough. She still won’t stop looking at him. It’s infuriating.

“So he told you.” He carries on. He doesn’t know how much he will have told her, but anything’s enough. She’s the only one who didn’t know. The only one who didn’t look at him like he was crazy.

El smiles slightly, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “He told my whole homeroom class, actually. Dr Graham wasn’t impressed.”

Will groans and buries his head into his hands. There’s nothing left to say. El knows, her whole class knows, and soon he’ll be school freak again. For once he feels glad for holidays and how forgetful they make people.

“It’s okay to have a bad day, you know,” El pushes on. She’s trying to ease him, and he realises she doesn’t know. She can’t know, if she thinks any of this is okay. “I have them all the time. Especially since leaving Nebraska.”

“I’m not having a bad day.” A blatant lie, but he doesn’t care. And then he does care, all at once, when El sighs and turns her eyes away from him. Suddenly all he wants is her eyes back on him.

“I’m not having a bad day. just… a bad couple of hours. The rest of it was fine.” The truth. Still her eyes stay focused on the main doors.

Will loosens his grip on the wheel and lets his hands fall to his lap. Chief Hopper will arrive in fifteen-twenty minutes. All he has to do is survive her interrogations and he’ll be fine.

“Is it about Mike?” She asks suddenly, twisting her full body to look at him.

He bristles, crossing his arms across his chest. Of all the questions she had to ask the one that always sends him into cardiac arrest. But of course she does. That’s just El. “Why would it be about Mike?”

“I don’t know,” she shrugs, deflating a little as though she’s lost her train of thought. “You just seemed a little… starey. At lunch.”

“I wasn’t being ‘starey’.” He scoffs, tone light-hearted. Inside his heart pounds against his chest a million miles an hour. He turns to the window, staring at the asphalt and trying to calm himself.

“I’m not stupid, you know,” El doesn’t sound light-hearted. She sounds crushed, but resilient. Fighting against her own rage. Just like she had when Will first met her. “I know something happened between you and Mike and everyone before I got here. I know there’s something people aren’t telling me, and it’s really making me feel like I’m going mad, so please don’t be a shit friend and lie to me Will.”

He holds his hands up in mock-surrender, finally meeting her eye. “Okay. I won’t lie. Ask me anything and I won’t lie.”

It’s a risky game. From the way her lip curves into a small smile, he guesses she’s taken the bait. If she asks, he’ll tell her. He’ll play by the rules and tell her anything she wants to know. He’s already severed his ties with Lucas and Max today, why not push it a little further.

The last thing he’s expecting her to ask is, “When did you start liking Mike?”

Will can’t remember what breathing is, never mind how to make his lungs go through with the action. He tries, anyhow, and finds himself able to wheeze out, “what?”

El looks a little embarrassed, wringing her hands together. “Before you ask, no one told me. I figured it out.”

“I don’t like Mike.” It’s a lie. He had promised to tell the truth, but the thought of it makes him want to run himself over with his car. Repeatedly.

“Yeah, you do,” El insists, leaning towards him. “You promised to tell the truth. Friends doesn’t lie, Will.”

“El. Do you even know how wrong that would be. On so many levels.” He’s speaking through gritted teeth, forcing the words out into the stale air. He feels something similar flare up inside him. Rage and fear, mangled into one. It terrifies him.

“Whoa, calm down,” her fingers close around his own. The feeling is anything but reassuring. It just amplifies how claustrophobic he feels.

He pushes through the feeling in his stomach, ragging out the few words he can string together. “I can’t calm down when you’re saying stupid-”

“Will, really. It’s okay,” El cuts him off, voice trying and failing to be soothing. “I had a friend back home who liked girls and boys. It’s fine. I think it’s pretty cool, actually.”

It’s not what he’s expecting. The knowledge impacts itself into his chest. El has a friend who’s like him. El doesn’t mind being friends with someone like him. El thinks it’s cool, not wrong and humiliating.

His mouth moves faster than his brain and he finds himself choking out the words, “You do?”

He hasn’t said anything, not really, but still she beams at him and nods enthusiastically. “Yeah. But it doesn’t matter what I think. It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks.”

Will wishes he could just melt into his seat because the feeling of being smiled at like nothing is wrong is just so mortifying. But instead he clings to himself, and whispers the most fevered question. “You don’t mind?”

“Why would I mind?” El returns, like he’s just told her he’s left-handed or prefers Kiss over AC/DC.

There are so many reasons. Too many to name. But for some reason, the one that pushes its way to the forefront of his mind is two pairs of eyes and a note flitting between the two. “You and Mike…”

El just laughs. It’s all so natural, Will thinks. She should be angry, but instead she shakes her head fondly, and says, “There is nothing going on between me and Mike. We’re just friends.”

They both let the air fall silent. So much has already been said, and Will is too tired to say anymore.

“It can help, you know,” El blurts out, because she can never just let things go. “To say it out loud.”

Will squints at her. It’s scrutinising, searching for the trap laced in her words. All he sees is open honesty, and the face of a girl he is quickly realising is his best friend.

So he does say it. Forces the words out through the lump in his throat. It’s simple and complicated and so much more than he could ever explain to anyone. He can’t even begin to picture telling his mom, on the way home from the grocery store. Or telling his dad, between clumsy meals.

With El it’s so simple because she knows. It’s deeper than any knowledge, burning in her eyes and the way she urges him to say it.

So he does. It’s as simple as “I like Mike.” Then it’s over.

He realises belatedly, as she says a hurried goodbye and climbs into Chief Hoppers car, that he never even answered her question. He tries to think about when he realised he liked Mike. But all he finds is the feeling of sitting next to Jonathan at the breakfast table and watching sitcom reruns with his mom. A feeling of constant, of always. Like he’s always liked Mike, numbly and continuously through everything.

The feeling makes him want to smother himself with a pillow. Destroy his yearning for a boy who is emotionally fifty thousand miles away for a hundred reasons, all of them Will’s fault.

Instead he drives home. He calls Lucas and Max respectively, leaving apologies on their waiting answering machine. Curls up on the coach and tries to prepare himself for the weeks of family and scrutiny.

When his mom gets home and asks him how his day was, he surprises himself by replying, “Good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter literally did not exist until a few hours ago. It was more of a nothing chapter, but I realised when writing how important it is that this fic has a bigger impact on sexuality and fluctuating mental health, so here it is.
> 
> If it isn't obvious, one of Will's major triggers is change. That's why he refused to have friends for so long after The Incident and why he's freaking out now that people seem to like him and school is ending. Also peep the increase in Elmax lmao
> 
> The next chapter is more of a domestic slice-of-life chapter about the Hopper-Byers, which should be a nice break from this one.
> 
> Also I was considering adding a chapter to have some more interaction between Will and Mike but I was worried it would kill the flow. Let me know what you think.


	11. Chapter 11

For the most part, the Christmas break is quiet and tolerable. Will spends the first few days doing nothing, sprawled out across the couch playing Atari. He doesn’t even leave the room when his mom and Jonathan get home from work, but he doesn’t really acknowledge their presence either. It’s like a halfway house, a middle section in between being okay and being bone crushingly empty all the time. It’s nice.

He doesn’t see anyone from school. He’s surprised to find he’s surprised by that. It makes him mad at himself. Some part of him expects Max to call at the house, or Dustin to turn up at his window with some sort of mad scheme. Instead, there’s nothing but radio silence and Will, still waiting for them to call. It makes him ache in a way he hasn’t felt since middle school.

El, however, calls every day, without fail. Will supposes it’s part of the deal. She’s the only one that knows, the only one who holds his heart in her hands. If they weren’t close before, they’re drawn together now. He gets used to the routine of her calling. Gets used to hearing the phone ring at 7:15 and knowing that’s for him. They don’t talk of much, but it’s nice to hear her voice. He’s already missing the car rides. That time is isolated in their own little bubble, apart from anything else. He’ll have to make do with phone calls, for now. Until he can replace it with their early morning routine again.

Jonathan finishes for the holidays only two days after him. It’s weird, just the two of them in the house. Awkward and stilted. Jonathan, true to his premature old man ways, spends his time pottering. He fixes a busted pipe. Paints the bathroom ceiling. Goes shopping for groceries. And Will, for his part, stays out of the way by not really moving from the couch.

Joyce doesn’t finish till Friday, three days before Christmas, or as it is unofficially known in the Byers household, the most miserable time of the year. Last Christmas, Will had refused to get out of bed. The Christmas before he had spent vomiting and crying. Four years ago, Jonathan had revealed he wasn’t going to college and their mom hadn’t spoken for the rest of the day. Nine years ago, Lonnie had blown his lid about Will’s choice in presents.

In between, there were a few nice Christmas’. The time Jonathan got his car. That time their aunt came to visit.

5th Grade when Mr and Mrs Wheeler had to make an emergency trip out of town and Mike came to stay.

But mostly, the Byers approach holidays with a careful reproach. Don’t get your hopes up too much. Don’t let yourself be crushed by the expectations of the season.

Which is why he’s surprised to see his mom smiling when she gets home from work.

“Mom,” Jonathan hazards. He seems to age down when he says that. It somehow suddenly makes him look much younger. “I went and got groceries yesterday. I told you, remember?”

It wouldn’t be the first time. Stress seems to make her forgetful. But Joyce just nods with a serene sort of smile, dumping the bags on the counter top. “Yeah I remember honey. I’m not senile just a yet.”

Jonathan laughs, but he sounds unsure of himself as he peers at the context of the bags. Joyce, instead, rounds on Will, who’s watching from the edge of the corridor. She extends her arms, beckoning him over. He obliges begrudgingly. Sometimes, it’s less exhausting to play the role of ‘son’.

She wraps her arms around him and looks between the two of them. “I invited Hop and El over tonight. Thought we could have a little pre-Christmas with all of us.”

“And you’re cooking?” Jonathan replies, holding a pack of mince in his hand.

Joyce lets go of Will to take it from his hands. “Ha-ha, very funny. Just because I can’t do eggs doesn’t mean I can’t succeed at lasagne.”

“Oh god,” Jonathan rubs a hand over his face and glances to Will, “She’s going to kill us all.”

The She in question nudges Jonathan in the ribs with her elbow, but she’s laughing as she grabs a wooden spoon and points it at him. “Looks like there’s no lasagne for you.”

“What a shame,” he returns drily.

Will, for his part, just laughs awkwardly. It feels intimate, a private moment between a family who all love and care for each other. It doesn’t feel right in their family, which is held together with staples and glue.

Jonathan is put in charge of setting the table, whilst Will chops the peppers and mushrooms. The knife feels heavy, weighted in his hand as he slowly carves at the vegetables. Three months ago he never would’ve been trusted with a sharp object. How times change.

He thinks about El and The Chief. It’s not the first time the families have spent time together. Cinema trips are a regular occurrence and once they all went out to climb the local peak together. But never anything as intimate as dinner, and never at their house. It feels foreign, undiscovered territory. More than anything it feels like a merging of the two families. An unofficial wedding ceremony, of sorts.

They arrive just after the lasagne (miraculously constructed, god knows how) goes in the oven. The Chief looks almost as red in the face as the bottle of wine clutched in his hand. Seeing him out of his uniform is strange, like crossing a boundary. Will doesn’t mention it, instead nodding as a greeting. The Chief seems more interested in talking to his mom, anyhow.

El grins when she sees him, bounding up and enveloping him into a hug. He can feel eyes watching him – Jonathans – and the whole spectacle makes a blush rise to his cheeks. She’s talking before he can even say hi, and it’s only been five days but somehow she has so much to say.

They sit next to each other, knocking knees together, pushing the half-burnt half-raw lasagne around their place. His mom doesn’t notice no one is really eating, too busy laughing. Will doesn’t know whether it’s the three glasses of wine she’s polished off or the dumb remarks Hopper keeps making, but he doesn’t care. He’s just glad to see her actually smiling for once.

* * *

He doesn’t know who brings the subject up. It could be Jonathan, who is watching all four of them with a wry smile. Or El, with a playful nudge to the ribs. It’s most likely Hopper, though, who is lounging so casually in his chair, looking more at home than Will has since middle school.

Whoever mentions it, it’s Joyce who brings it to life. She emerges from the loft armed with three boxes, balanced on top of one another, teetering in her arms. She dumps them on the table with a triumphant grin.

“Lonnie always said, he always said,” she’s rambling now, fuelled on by the wine in the pit of her stomach. “That I took too many photos. But I always knew that it was good, it was a good thing, because it gives us more to look back on.”

She yanks off the lid and pulls out a yellow and blue album at the top. Then, she sits back in her chair and opens the first page, spreading it out between her and the chief. Will catches glimpses of pushchairs and small feet as she flicks through the pages wistfully. The photos look old, faded beyond repair. The baby in them, he assumes, is Jonathan.

El reaches into the box, fingers closing cautiously around the next album. Will recognises the scrawled writing and ketchup stained exterior, even though he hasn’t seen the album in question for years. He groans, burying his face in his hands, whilst El is laughing.

The first half of the album is baby photos. Will, new born and blue, clutched against his mother’s chest. Will, in the bath, soap bubbles piled on his head. Will, next to Jonathan, matching outfits dishevelled.

“I wish we had photos like that,” Hopper is saying. He’s stood behind them now, watching El turn and coo at each page. He has a hand on her shoulder, familiar and fatherly. “By the time El moved in she was already in the anti-camera pre-teen stage.”

El just grins up at him and squeezes his hand.

“I never knew you were adopted,” Will half-hisses to her as they stare at photos of his first day at school.

She shrugs in response. For a girl who talks a lot, Will realise, she never actually says anything.

The second half of the photo album covers middle school. The pictures embarrassingly peter out around this time, leaving many pages left unfilled. The rest seem to be unsatisfactory family shots that look faked beyond belief. All plastic smiles and too-tight grips on his arm. They make him wince to look at.

Nothing, however, is as bad as the last photo in the album. By now, El has stopped ribbing him about the photos and is instead staring with a kind of abject horror. Will gets where she’s coming from. It’s like watching a car collision in slow motion.

She flicks to the last page, where a picture sits solitary. It’s grainy, like it’s raining heavily- like his mom has taken it instead of Jonathan.

El recognises the faces immediately. Her fingers ghost over a younger Lucas Sinclair in full Jedi get up. Dustin is next, faded green face paint and signature grin. They frame the picture, standing either edge of its epicentre.

They’re both dressed as Jedi, but which ones escape him. They’re not smiling at the camera, instead laughing between the two of them. Dustin and Lucas aren’t looking and for a minute the two boys are all alone in the photograph.

Some part of his brain numbly notes that this is the last photo of him and Mike. The last time they were ever a pair. The last day of calm before the storm.

It’s so ridiculously intimate that Will has to resist the urge to slam the album shut on El’s fingers. Instead he lets out a shaky breath and doesn’t pull away when she intertwines her fingers with hers.

Just like the two of them are doing in the photo.

Later, they watch a movie, layered together on top of the sofa. El, tucked up against his mom’s side, feet laying over Hopper. Jonathan perched on the arm. A perfect little family.

Will sits on the floor. There, and yet apart. His mind is reeling, flashing images of that Halloween and Mike’s hand in his and the way El had looked at him when she had seen the photo.

But then his mom reaches down to scrub his hair and he forgets all about it.

He tries to, at least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this is so late, my computer decided to reboot in the middle of me trying to upload this!! But here is like, 2K words of domestic fluff and what Mike and Will's relationship was like pre-incident.
> 
> I split this chapter up because there's a conversation with Jonathan that comes next but it didn't really fit here. That is completely finished so will probably be uploaded tomorrow morning!!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed!! Only four chapters left after this one!! (anyone remember when this was like, ten chapters?)


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "He’s staring so intently into the window of the chemist, eyes scanning the concoctions of medication to see if he takes any of them, that he doesn’t notice the looming threat just up the street."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW; slight mentions of suicidal thoughts, please be careful guys!!

The rest of the holidays passes seemingly uneventfully. Christmas day itself is bland and generic. Dry turkey, christmas reruns on TV and a call from their aunt around her bedtime – eight o’clock.

His mom gets him a stack of new books, which she hands over with an apologetic smile. He knows why. He gets that his meds are already so expensive, and that they seem to increase his dose every couple of months. But still, it stings to know that Jonathan only gets a twenty-dollar gift card to junkyard records because of him.

His present from Jonathan comes in a smooth silk box. He removes the lid carefully, trying not to damage the contents. Inside the packaging sits a shirt. It’s slightly rumpled, a faded blue sort of colour.

“I figured if you’re gonna be going to more parties, you’d need something better to wear,” Jonathan explains with a half-smile. Will doesn’t have the heart to tell him that he may not be invited to another party again. instead he just nods and mumbles a quick “Thank you,” under his breath.

They spend the rest of the day on the couch, Will watching the other two through his hooded lids. They seem content, not happy but content, and that feels like all he can ask for.

After that, everything else is a blur. The days between christmas and new year blur into a muddled mess, a collection of fragmented memories he can’t really recall. Both his mom and his brother have the time of work, and soon the house begins to feel claustrophobic. Too many bodies, Will reasons. Too many minds all thinking in the same space.

By January 2nd the house is unbearable. Jonathan’s back at work, but that still leave his mom, pottering around the kitchen. She keeps smiling at him, asking him about friends and college and how the books are. Its suffocating for one day, never mind a whole week.

The phone calls from El have dried up too. He knows she’s probably busy, spending christmas with the chief, or maybe even her real parents, whoever and wherever they are. Still, that thought doesn’t quell the niggling seed of doubt in the back of his mind.

He wakes up that morning restless and antsy. The house is still, like the quiet before the storm. He can hear gentle footfall in the kitchen, the sound of his mom stirring her coffee and singing gently to herself.

There’s something inside him, clawing at his chest. A need to get out the house, to feel breathless and dizzy with fresh air.

The last thing he wants to do is explain that to his mom. So instead he pulls at the rusty window hanging over his bed and swings his legs out, one then the other. there are no stairs in their house, so it’s an easy getaway. He’s done it before. When he was nine, to sneak to Mike’s house in the middle of a rainstorm. When he was fourteen, reeling on the too-high dosage of his meds.

Most recently at the end of the Junior year. When he climbed out of the window with a bottle of rum Jonathan had been given one christmas clutched in his fist. He’d drank it all and collapsed in Mr Haywards field three miles out. The farmer had found him and driven him to the emergency room. They’d had to pump his stomach.

That memory is burnt into his mind, but he tries not to think about it as he gently slides the latch across and slips down on the grass. This time isn’t like that time. It feels much more mundane, like a teenager sneaking out when grounded.

Jonathan has taken the car, which leaves Will with his bike. If he’s honest, he really doesn’t mind. he prefers his bike anyway, with its smooth, familiar curves and carefully worn down wheels.

He slings his leg over the bike, trying to ignore how foreign it feels after months of driving everywhere. He likes it, though. How it digs into the flesh left uncovered by his shorts and stings on the palms of his hands.

He’s cycling before he even knows where he’s going. Just turning the pedals and concentrating on his breathing. The air is biting, and for a minute he wishes he’d brought a coat. Or at least pulled some jeans on instead of his ratty shorts. Just be grateful it’s not snowing, he tells himself.

He has to stop when he reaches Hawkins high street. His legs are stinging from the physical excursion and a stitch has worked its way into his side. He clambers off his bike, opting instead to push it alongside himself.

The street is deserted. Most shops remain closed for the entire christmas break and the few that remain open have a dwindling amount of customers. He glances into each window as he passes, dully registering the cheery christmas decorations and produce resting in each one.

He’s staring so intently into the window of the chemist, eyes scanning the concoctions of medication to see if he takes any of them, that he doesn’t notice the looming threat just up the street.

Mike Wheeler is dressed more appropriately for the weather, in a buttoned up woollen coat and red hat. His cheeks are glowing, his fingers paling against the handlebar of the bike he’s pushing along.

Will didn’t think Mike would still have a bicycle. He was one of the first to get a car and since that point he’s been rarely seen without it. But here he is, wheeling along a faded yellow bike that has clearly seen better days on an openly deserted street.

Will quickly runs through the scenarios in his head. Mike could just ignore him. That one seems the most just, but somehow the most unlikely. Mike is too nice. Mike is too kind. And he can’t pretend not to see Will, not on a street that is so empty.

Maybe he’ll just nod. He’s seen Mike do that to so many people around school – not that he’s watching. He’s not.

The nod doesn’t involve stopping, so there’s no conversation necessary. Maybe a mumbled “hey” if he’s feeling particularly generous today.

He’s too busy running through scenarios that he is only aware of Mike when he stops right in front of him. He actually stops, which Will thinks is bizarre, but he doesn’t mention it. Instead he tries for a smile, to mirror the one spread across Mike’s own features.

“Will, hey,” Mike sounds out of breath, like he’s run a marathon just to get here.

Will doesn’t know what to reply, so he doesn’t. Maybe then this interaction will end before he says anything embarrassing and he can just go back to dreaming about the Mike in the picture.

Not this Mike in front of him, who has solid arms and legs and eyebrows that crease when he frowns. Not this Mike, who hates Will for what he did to him.

The Mike in front of his shuffles awkwardly and coughs, a trait Will remembers from middle school. “How’s your break been?” he’s saying, like he’s half-expecting Will to actually answer that question.

Instead, Will just shrugs in response. He can’t speak to Mike, he just can’t, not if he wants to make it through the day without crying.

There’s more shuffling. Another cough. Then; “I was gonna ride to the quarry, for a little while. You wanna come with?”

Will doesn’t want to, not really. But Mike’s eyes are so gentle, welling in the same way El’s do, and since when has he ever been able to resist Mike Wheeler.

He owes him this, after everything. He owes him anything he ever asks for.

Which is how he finds himself, the second day of 1989, trailing behind Mike Wheeler as they ride to the quarry.

It feels like some cruel trick the universe is playing. Some kind of horrible scheme designed to make him feel shittier. To dig up the past, remind him of Middle School and then trample all over him. Yet still, he complies.

Mike dumps his bike in the undergrowth of the quarry, and Will does the same. Then the two of them sling themselves down on a patch of grass, only a few meters from the edge. Will could stare at the edge of the cliff all day. It’s so enticing, the decline into darkness, the lure of the pit. He used to come here and stare, as the rain slicked the edges, willing himself to slip.

Now he drags his eyes away from the edge and focuses on Mike instead. His features are just as intoxicating.

Mike is talking, but his voice is catching on the wind, dissipating into the air. Will leans forward, straining to hear him.

“God, I haven’t been here in years,” he’s saying, peering around at the dismal landscape. “I keep meaning to come but it’s always track meets and parties and looking after Holly-”

Will cuts in, in spite of himself. “How is Holly? She must be at school by now.”

“Yeah,” Mike laughs but he sounds strangled, “She’s a proper little person now. It’s terrifying.” Will doesn’t say anything, so Mike carries on. “Like, the other day she snuck into my room and dug up a load of my old toys. Spread them out everywhere. I’m starting to understand how Lucas must’ve felt with Erica.”

Erica. Will sees her around school sometimes. He always tries to smile at her, but she never returns the gesture. Maybe she just doesn’t remember him.

“Or you with Nancy?” Will is returning before he even realises. He can feel a smirk playing at his lips and he can’t control himself.

Mike, for his part, just puts his hands up defensively, “I was a precious child. Nancy was lucky to have me as her brother.”

“How is she, anyway?” Will is asking. Maybe it’s on behalf of his brother, who was always so sweet on her. Or maybe it’s for himself. Nancy, no matter how much he tries to deny it, is part of his lost childhood.

“She’s insufferable. She’s home for the break right now and she won’t shut up about Yale and her friends and how amazing all her teachers are,” Mike rolls his eyes and gestures to his bike, “why do you think I cycled out here in this shit weather.”

Mike pauses, as though trying to catch his breath, before continuing. “What about you? Why are you out here in the middle of winter?”

He focuses his eyes on the tufts of grass sprouting from the ground. They’re shaded white with frost, like small blades. “Just needed some fresh air.”

Mike doesn’t push. Maybe he realises it’s not his place. After all, they’re not friends anymore. Will doesn’t know what they are. Acquaintances with mutual friend? Arch enemies? The sweetest boy alive and the boy who had to go and hurt him? He doesn’t know. But he does know that he needs to stop thinking about it.

“So what about you and El then?” He doesn’t want to know, but in a morbid sort of way.

But Mike just laughs, leaning back onto his hands. “It’s over. Not that it was ever happening, but still…” at the confused look which spreads over Will’s face, he elaborates. “Like, we went on one stupid date and it was awkward as hell. But we had all this chemistry, like at Max’s party and with the notes and she came to one of my track races once…”

That’s a new one to Will. Still, he nudges Mike when he trails off, prompting him with an “and?”

“And I thought she liked me back, I guess. But she called me up two days into the break and said she just wants to be friends.”

“Are you okay with that?” It’s a double edged sword. Either way he gets his heart broken.

Mike shrugs. “Yeah. I mean, she’s really cool and everything, but weirdly… I think I’m happy to just be her friend.”

Will tries hard to breathe, because it means nothing, not really. Mike’s still going to get a girlfriend, even if it doesn’t end up being El. Will still hurt Mike. Mike still hates Will. Everything is the same as it was five minutes ago.

Still, he feels something in his stomach unclench when Mike smiles at him lazily.

It all ends with Mike reaching from his bike, tugging it into an upright position and Will watching helplessly. He can’t make Mike stay. He can’t make Mike do anything. So instead he watches as he drags his bike through the bushes and throws a quick wave over his shoulder. He’s grateful for the time Mike gives him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're so near the end I can almost taste it lol
> 
> There are three (??) more chapters, plus maybe an epilogue, and then we are done!! It's honestly been so fun to write this, I'm really looking forward to writing the conclusion.
> 
> I've changed the order of these chapters but the next one it completely written. I may upload today if I edit it in time!!
> 
> Hope you enjoy this added chapter with an actual Mike and Will interaction and that it doesn't seem too out of place!!


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Now he hovers outside his brother’s room, not quite in or out. Jonathan is sorting through his laundry, dumping the dark clothes onto the floor. He’s so absorbed in his own little world, humming a tune Will doesn’t know under his breath."

By the time he slips back in through his window, it’s beginning to darken outside. He’s not surprised to find his room undisturbed, exactly as he left it. It stings a little, to know that no one noticed he was gone for at least five hours. But on the other hand, his plan worked well enough.

He pulls open his door, and pads down the corridor. He catches a glimpse of his mom, curled up in the corner of the couch. The TV is flickering, illuminating the passive expression on her face. She looks so peaceful. But she’s not the one he’s looking for so he spins on his heel and heads back up the hallway.

Jonathan is in his room, but of course he is. Will can’t remember a time when the two of them weren’t separated by the thin wall between their bedrooms. He supposes there must have been a time. In all the photographs of Before they’re wrapped around each other, Jonathan pressing his chin on top of Wills head. It’s an image of closeness that would alert visiting acquaintances of some sort of friendship between the two brothers, but the memory of any such thing is fuzzy to him.

Now he hovers outside his brother’s room, not quite in or out. Jonathan is sorting through his laundry, dumping the dark clothes onto the floor. He’s so absorbed in his own little world, humming a tune Will doesn’t know under his breath.

Will raps on the door frame before he can regret it. Jonathan startles at the noise and spins in its direction, faded navy button up still hanging between his fingers. They just stare at one another. It hits Will then, that it shouldn’t be this awkward and stilted between two brothers. It’s something he’s caused and something he can’t undo.

“Can I ask you something?” His voice is loud in his own ears.

Jonathan nods eagerly, making a move towards the door. Will flinches back a little. A reflex. The look of Jonathans face only makes the guilt grasp more at his intestines. His brother takes a curtesy step backwards. “Yeah bud. Of course. You can ask me anything.”

Will steps into the room. It’s a boy’s room, but not in the way he’d expected. Posters of obscure bands litter the walls; clothes hang on the back of chairs. It’s not like Lucas room, filled with baseball bats and pin ups. It’s certainly not like his own room, devoid of any life signs other than the lump that usually resides under the covers.

It’s not how he imagines Mike’s room either. All soft blues and greys and photos of his friends.

Maybe this what a man’s room looks like. Cluttered and busy. Full of a life he has lived. Not a shell like Wills own room.

Will doesn’t know his brother, not really, he quickly realises as his eyes flicker across the rows of vinyl records. Certainly not anymore.

“Will?” Jonathans voice centres him once again.

He asks the question before he can regret it. “You’ve had a crush before, right?”

He doesn’t know why he asks, because he already knows the answer. Jonathan’s crush on Nancy Wheeler was tow gossip long before Will himself was.

Jonathan squints a little, sitting down on the edge of the bed and motioning for Will to do the same. “Is this about El?”

Will wants to protests, but he just shakes his head half-heartedly. He’s too tired to fight against Jonathans speculations. El, at least, is an acceptable subject of his affections. She’s a girl. She doesn’t hate him.

She isn’t fucking Mike Wheeler of all people.

Jonathan doesn’t push. “Do you want to know how to ask someone out?” He asks instead, chuckling weakly. “Because mom would be better for that. Or Hopper, maybe.”

“No, no,” Will looks up to his brother. They’re the same height now but Will is slumped forward, so for a moment it’s like he’s five again. Trying to climb the tree in the front yard. Scraping his knees as he falls. Letting his brother kiss it better. “The opposite really. How to get over someone.”

Jonathan doesn’t say anything, not for a while. He just slings his arm around Wills shoulder and pulls him into his body. It should feel strange but instead the movement feel familiar. They feel nice.

“There’s not a clear cut way to get over someone,” Jonathan is saying, voice muffled against Wills hair. “God knows I know that.”

“Nancy Wheeler?”

“Nancy Wheeler,” he affirms with a sad sort of sigh. “Look, all I know is that it takes time. A shit load of time. And even then, the feelings don’t always go away.

Will laughs inwardly. How much more time? Will he always be mooning over Mike Wheeler? Does his life end here, in Hawkins, before it even really begins?

“I’m sorry I don’t have a better answer,” Jonathan is apologetic. Always so apologetic. It makes Will realise he’s never said sorry back. Not when Jonathan walked for miles to find him huddled in the woods during a rainstorm. Not when he had refused to eat anything for three weeks and hand thrown up anything that Jonathan had tried to get inside him. Not for all those times he kicked and screamed at him as all his brother did was hold him tight and kiss the top of his head.

So he says it now, leaning against his brother’s shoulder. “I’m really sorry too.”

His brother just frowns, shifting a little so they’re eye to eye. “What for?”

There’s too many things to choose from, Will thinks bitterly. He goes for the big one. “For being such a fuck up that you couldn’t go to college.”

Jonathan snorts, and shakes his head. “Will I didn’t go to college because I didn’t want to go to college.”

“You might have wanted to,” Will mutters because it’s true, isn’t it? “If you weren’t having to hold me and mom together.”

“I promise you, I didn’t want to go to college.”

“But you used to say… before I- I fucked everything up. You used to say you wanted to go to NYU. You wouldn’t shut up about it.”

“People change, Will. You of all people know that,” the words are soft but they hurt. They hurt in the best way.

He just nods and buries himself further into his brother’s shoulder.

He feels like crying. He actually feels like crying. He can’t remember the last time he felt anything more than numbness and it’s a little exhilarating.

But he doesn’t cry, because Jonathan has already done more than enough without Will forcing him to deal with this too. So he swallows the tears and pulls away from his brother.

“Thanks for the advice. I’ll think about it.”

Jonathan just nods slightly, head barely moving, before scooping up the pile of laundry and hauling it to the kitchen. Will watches him go from the bed. He’s so tempted to curl up and bury himself under the covers. He’s pulled from those thoughts by the shrill ringing of the phone. He groans, pulling himself up and grabbing the phone from hook. “Hey, Byers Residence.”

“Hey, Will!” the line is fuzzing with static, but the voice is clear and distinct.

“Max?” He frowns, grip tightening on the receiver. Her voice seems laced with desperation, loud and brash.

There’s a piercing buzz and the sound of shuffling, hushed voices as someone else grabs at the phone. Now, El’s voice fills the line. “Will,” she starts, breathless.

“Are you okay?” He asks before she can continue, fear gripping at his stomach. He needs to know, needs to hear her say those two words.

Instead, there’s the sound of more frantic voices. Then; “How quick can you get to Mike’s house?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short chapter, and literally five minutes after the last!!
> 
> I'm so eager to finish this story that I'm generating chapters at the speed of light. It's honestly the most challenging but rewarding thing I've written for a long time and I've really enjoyed it!!
> 
> I really want to hear people's final theories before everything is unveiled!! Please comment and let me know what you think is going to happen!!


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "He doesn’t want to think about Max or Mike or what the ice in his bag could be for. Instead he shudders through the cold and pedals faster."

There’s ice melting in his bag. It’s just sitting there, seeping through the fabric, numbing his back. Max had asked him to bring it. well, he thinks she did. The line was fuzzy and her speech was garbled with whatever had been happening in the background. He doesn’t want to think about Max or Mike or what the ice in his bag could be for. Instead he shudders through the cold and pedals faster.

He knows the way to Mike’s place, it’s scored on the inside of his heart. But still, in the biting air, he finds himself halting his bike at an intersection. Is it right? Or left? He curses internally and digs the front wheel of his bike into the frosty grass. It’s near Lucas’, he knows that. Was it next door? Honestly, after everything, he never thought he’d forget Mike’s house.

He turns right. Hopes for the best.

It turns out it’s the right street. He knows as soon as he sees the perfect lines of trees and houses that round out the picture-perfect cul-de-sac. It looks the same as every street this side of Hawkins, but Will knows it instantly. Recognises the curb from cycling alongside it, colliding with it and skinning his forehead on the concrete.

He cycles faster, lifting from his seat. Now that he’s seen the street he can’t stop. Something inside him propels him onwards to Mike. Maybe it’s the thought that he needs him. Maybe it’s the fear that he might not be there when he does. Whatever it is, he finds himself having to skid to a stop as he nears Mike’s house.

He dumps his bike on the ground. It’s old anyway, rusted deep brown with gears that stick. Plus, Mike needs him. It keeps circling around in his head, like one of Jonathan’s records that keeps skipping. Mike needs me. Mike needs me. Mike needs me.

He leaves his backpack too, figuring it will just slow him down. Instead, he fishes out the ice and tucks it under his arm. He grabs the mini first aid kit that resides there too, for good measure. His mom had given it to him his first year at high school. He didn’t know whether it was to help him after he was hurt by other students or by himself. He never asked, so he still doesn’t know.

Armed with both of them he starts towards Mike’s house. He doesn’t know what he’s expecting. a quiet, deserted house. A contained commotion.

He’s certainly not expecting the crowds of people spilling out from the Wheeler residence. He frowns at them. They’re all about his age. Some he recognises from hallways and classrooms. Others are completely foreign, faces and voices and clothes merging into one in his mind.

He doesn’t know why they’re here too. Doesn’t want to know. Instead he elbows through the crowds, eyes fixed on the door, and thinks of the garbled voices on the phone and the fact that Mike needs him.

Which is certainly odd when the very same Mike slings an arm around his shoulder after he passes through the doorway.

The arm is heavy, weighting him down and he’d shake it off except it’s Mike and his inside are being gnawed by anxiety. So instead, he curls up against Mike’s side and presses his full weight back. The thought of “he’s okay” overtakes him, and if he wasn’t so confused he’d cry in relief.

Mike hugs back, for the most part. It’s with one arm though, because the other is clutching a cup. The drink inside has spilt, and is trickling down his arm, slowly approaching the sleeve of his shirt.

Will wants to pulls away, wants to ask what the fuck is going on, but he can’t because Mike is hugging him and he hasn’t felt that since middle school. So instead he holds on and ignores the thumping music swirling with the crowds around him.

He doesn’t let go of Mike until he is pulled away. Gentle arms wrap around his neck, pulling him into an embrace. It’s then that he blinks, adjusts to the scene around him. The ice has begun to thaw properly and little droplets keep hitting the floor.

He pulls away from the embrace and meets El’s eyes. She’s grinning, flushed in the face. This close he can smell her breath. It reeks of alcohol.

“What’s going on?” Is all he can manage and even then, most of his question is seemingly drowned out by the music.

El just grins at him, lacing her fingers with his free hand. “I’m so glad you could make it!” She’s saying, voice elated, speech stilting a little. Probably the fault of the alcohol. “Mike said, he said he’d invited you but he clearly didn’t!”

She shoots a look at Mike, but it isn’t particularly nasty. Mike doesn’t smile back. His eyes seem to be fixed solely on Will, who blushes away from the gaze.

“Invited me to what?”

“The party, obviously,” El laughs, gesturing around them.

Will pretends not to feel his heart plummet through the floor. He hates how devastated it makes him feel, to know Mike is fine and doesn’t need him. That Mike just forgot to invite him to his party. He probably meant to forget. Will is ashamed at how much that surprises him. It’s a long time since middle school and Mike Wheeler is still breaking his heart.

No, that’s not right. Will was the one in the wrong. Will is always the one in the wrong.

Somehow, he feels the blame seeping away. Somehow, he feels lie he shouldn’t be treated like this.

El, for the first time that night, looks at Will. Actually, really looks at him. Takes in his blown pupils and shuddery breaths. The bag of ice sagging in his arms.

“Will, are you okay?”

“Over the phone,” he starts, eyes skipping between El and Mike, who for some reason won’t stop staring at him, “Over the phone you sounded urgent.”

“Duh,” it sounds like a joke, but El isn’t laughing. She suddenly looks soberer. “You were missing the party.”

“And… the ice?”

“For the drinks,” she motions to the kitchen, frown blossoming on her face. “Will, are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he brushes her off, though it feels like it’s getting harder to breathe. He just wants his bed. He just wants Mike Wheeler to stop looking at him like he did that day. Crumpled in the hallway. Surrounded by red.

So instead, he pushes towards the kitchen.

It’s Mike’s words that stop him. He’s not said anything, not since the hug. Not since the quarry and the confessions and El.

“That’s just so Will, isn’t it?” Mike’s words are like ice, colder than the bag in his arms. “Always taking things too far.”

Mike sounds pained. The words scratch in his throat like chalk. Will doesn’t know why he’s hurt. It’s something Will did, it’s always something Will did, but is it new or old? That he doesn’t know.

Will doesn’t respond. He wouldn’t know how to. How do you undo years of damage? How do you undo interlocked hands and broken hearts?

Instead he wrestles his way to the kitchen and dumps the fully-melted ice into the sink. He braces either side of the sink, closes his eyes and tries to breathe. It’s hard at first, hurts his ribs and stings his eyes. He swipes at the tears but they just keep falling, like a persistent tap that won’t stop dripping.

There’s a hand resting on the small of his back, firm but gentle, holding him in place. It just makes him cry harder, tears mingling with melting ice.

“You shouldn’t have tried to help me, Lucas,” he weeps gently. “I’m still the same person I was. I hurt people and I- I make everything as bad as it can possibly be.”

“No, you don’t,” Lucas is persistent. It just makes Will cry harder. He pulls himself upright and scrubs at his face till it feels like he’s ripped the skin off.

“Yes, I do. I’m such a shitty person, I hurt you, and Max, and I’m awful to you all the time. And I hurt Dustin, and-” he falters on Mike’s name. He feels like he’s going to throw up, but he pushes it down. This is more important. “I thought I was getting better. I thought I was making progress, but I’m still the same shitty person I’ve always been.”

“Will,” That’s Dustin, gripping his shoulders, but his face is a blur, “You’re not shitty. Not then, not now, not ever.”

“Good people don’t- they don’t do what I did,” all these years and he still can’t say it.

Dustin winces at the memory and Will manages to wriggle out of his grip. He just wants to get out of Hawkins, for good. Get far away from the name Will Byers and Mike Wheeler and the way he keeps hurting people that he loves.

Max is blocking the exit to the kitchen door, arms folded across her chest.

Will just wipes his nose with his sleeve and straightens himself out. “Thank you for everything, Max. Thank you for trying to help. But you can stop now. I’m a shitty person, and a shittier friend and I don’t know why you thought you could change that.”

Her face contorts painfully and he lets out a sob because there’s the proof. He did that to her.

He shoulders his way past, making a bee-line to the front door. There are people watching him, he knows that, but then again, when aren’t they.

Mike doesn’t try to stop him, though his mouth does twist into a grimace when he sees Will dodging past a girl from his French class. He looks almost sorry from where Will is standing. It must be a trick of the light. Mike has nothing to be sorry for. Not now, not ever.

It’s El who spots him. El who follows him out into the air without even so much as a coat. El who struggles through the crowds to round him off at his bike.

She grabs the handlebars, effectively freezing him in place. “Will, what’s going on? Are you okay?”

“How did you get to the party?” He doesn’t know why he asks. It doesn’t matter, not really, not anymore. He’s the one who’s bad for her, staining her senior year by being such a fucking mess. But somehow, he still feels the seeds of betrayal settling into the pit of his stomach.

El’s eyes shift, dancing between the bike and Mike’s car, parked carefully in the drive way. It takes a while to click.

“Mike picked you up?” He doesn’t have a right to feel hurt, but he somehow still does.

“Will, I swear, it’s not like that. He was picking up Dustin and he said he’d swing by for me too. It’s not a big deal.”

He’d laugh at that, he really would. If it didn’t feel like someone was taking a sledge hammer to his patched-up patchwork heart. “No, you’re right, it’s not a big deal. I told you to get new friends and it looks like you did. Just wish you could’ve done it without pretending to be friends with me first.”

Her grip falters on the bike and he tugs it away. El doesn’t move, staring at him. “Will, what is wrong with you?”

“It’s okay, you know,” he stops and turns to look at her, twisting his body backwards. “To just see each other at family events and around school. You don’t have to be my friend just because our parents are.”

“Will, can you just stop for a minute and listen to me?” He ignores her, pushing his bike forward, wheels squeaking on the asphalt. He doesn’t even know she’s running to keep up until her fingers close around his arm and yank him back. “I don’t know what this act is, pushing everyone away and acting like a jerk, but I don’t buy it. I know you, and the boy who hates Blondie and wants to go to NYU and has an open heart is you.”

She motions at him, hand wavering up and down. “This dick who pushes away his friends and pretends to hate everyone is not you.”

Will snorts and writhes out of her grip. “You know, I really thought Mike would’ve told you by now. Everyone else knows. Maybe you should go and ask them.”

“I don’t care what happened in middle school,” she sounds exasperated, hands tugging up to pull at her hair. “I care what’s happening now. I won’t let you isolate yourself, Will.”

He starts to wheel his bike down the street, turning around so he doesn’t have to look at her, or the crowd of people pooling at Mike’s door.

Over his shoulder, he shouts, “Just leave me the fuck alone, El. Please can all of you just leave me the fuck alone?”

He’s glad he’s not looking to see the way El’s face crumples, or how Max pulls her into a tight hug and presses her chin to the other girl’s head. He’s glad he doesn’t see the way Mike watches him until he rounds the corner. He’s glad he doesn’t see Lucas and Dustin, pulling the other boy inside.

And he’s glad they don’t see the way he folds when he gets to his lawn. How his knees buckle under himself and plant him firmly into the grass. How he screams and howls until his mom and Jonathan come and wrap their arms around him. How they carry him inside and hold him while he thrashes at them.

He’s glad all they see is Will Byers, cycling away, alone as always.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know what I think of this chapter... at least it got us to the point we need to be!!
> 
> There's a little more information in this chapter, so keep your theories coming before the final chapter!!
> 
> I've really enjoyed this fic so much that I'm already considering a sequel, maybe one with more byler.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter!! Let me know if you spot my little Frank Turner reference ;)


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "By the time he gets back to school, everyone seems to have listened to him. They’re all staying the fuck away. Really he should be grateful. It’s what he asked for."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW; intense suicidal thought and bullying. Please be careful guys!!

By the time he gets back to school, everyone seems to have listened to him. They’re all staying the fuck away. Really he should be grateful. It’s what he asked for. But instead he feels sick every time he walks down a corridor and catches the eyes of fellow students fixed on him. They don’t even look away anymore; don’t even pretend they weren’t staring. He’s a psycho, a nutcase, but not one that demands any sort of fear. Just one little kids point and laugh at.

Max won’t look at him in English. She just stares straight ahead, watching the chalkboard as if the secrets of the universe are scrawled there. Will doesn’t blame her. It’s what he asked for, after all.

He doesn’t see Lucas or Dustin in the weeks that follow, and he doesn’t actively seek them out either. It makes his chest ache. Even after everything he did, he always had Dustin and Lucas. Pounding on his backdoor. Waving to him in the hallway. Keeping their distance, sure, but always there.

He had thought before that they had hated him. Now he realises how it truly feels to be hated by everybody.

He only sees El once. He’s shuffling to Algebra, sticking close to the lockers as though high school has become some sort of savannah. It’s been three weeks since the party, one and a half weeks since he came back to school and four days since he stopped eating for good. Walking’s hard right now, but then again, so is everything.

She’s at her locker, fiddling with the code. She looks tired, he realises, eyes shadowed with bags that match his own. Her nails have been gnawed down to the skin and she keeps kicking at the locker, as though somehow that action will magically make it open.

For the first time since September, he feels truly and utterly lost. A month ago she had bumped their feet together under his kitchen table. Three months ago they had taken dumb photos in their Halloween costumes at the bottom of his stairs. And now he has to look away when her eyes briefly flit to his.

El looks like she’s about to say something. She moves away from the locker, pushing it too as she takes a few confident steps into the hallway.

But then she falters. Flinches away from his hardened stare and looks instead to the other end of the hallway where signature hair and letterman jacket waits. Mike doesn’t look at him. He deserves that.

El shoots him a watery smile as she takes the steps back and nearly collides into Mike’s side. She looks sad. So sad. She should look happy.

Will stumbles to the double doors and throws up in response. He’s got nothing left to throw up, left retching and heaving, scrabbling blindly at the brick wall next to him.

Of all the routines established in senior year, this quickly becomes his least favourite. Mornings are for waking up, tipping his meds down the drain and arguing with his mom. Each day the arguments become viler yet somehow more tired. After a week of this, his mom takes to leaving early for work, probably so she’s not worn out before the day’s even begun. She is replaced instead by Jonathan, who is less argumentative. He just shoves breakfast towards Will, even though he knows it will go straight in the bin.

Then he walks to school. The car journeys are long gone. He tried, his first day back, but instead he found himself taking a left, then a right, another right and a left until he found the car parked on the edge of the quarry. The Chief had found him there, just as the sky was beginning to darken, contemplating letting his body fall of the edge like a crumpled rag doll.

Chief Hopper had driven him home. They didn’t talk of El, or the party, or of anything. Instead Hopper had given him a mars bar and turned the radio up to drown out his thoughts. Will hadn’t eaten the mars bar.

He couldn’t get on his bike again. Even if he wanted to, his hands shake too much now with his missing doses. He would take it, but it makes him feel nothing and he really needs to feel this hurt. He owes that to Mike and El.

Jonathan had offered to drop him off, an offer he flat out refused, which left walking.

So now he walks to school. He likes it. When it’s sleeting he can feel it carving into his skin and wearing down at his clothes. It takes his mind of everything, feeling his bones are peaking out of his skin.

* * *

It’s raining the day the dam bursts. The rain seems never-ending, a thundering storm that splits open the heavens.

Will’s walking in it when it starts. It’s not a school day, so he has nowhere to be, but he just had to get out of the house. It used to be his safe haven, but now it’s filled with ghosts and painful reminders of something long dead.

It hadn’t been raining when he left, so he had abandoned the rain coat at home. He wouldn’t have brought one anyone, not even if it was already thundering, because he likes the cold. It reminds him he’s human.

He’s just walking to nowhere, kicking through the grass at the side of the road. The rain starts slowly at first, just enough to slick his hair and creep down the back of his jumper. But then it becomes heavy, persistent, hard droplets digging into his scalp.

He doesn’t remember starting to run but he must do because his legs are burning and his vision is blurring and when was the last time he ate? He scrubs at his eyes but the black spots don’t dissipate. He knows he should rest, that if he punishes himself too much, he’ll keel over, but he can’t. He has to keep going. He has a destination to reach- he’s sure of that now.

He goes slower, but still running, because the rain is chasing him and coating his skin. He keeps stopping to breathe, but that just makes the rain fall heavier, so in the end he pushes through and just keeps running.

He can feel something welling inside him. The rain seems to be flooding a dam fit to burst.

By the time he reaches the porch, all he wants to do is curl up into a ball and let the rain take him. instead he forces his burning thighs to climb the last few steps, then raises his hand to knock. Once. Twice. Three times.

El answers the door. It’s some sort of miracle. He wasn’t even sure if he had the right house, given the fact that all the streets in Hawkins look the same and the rain has obstructed most of his vision. Even then, it could’ve be Hopper who answered the door.

But it’s El, rubbing at her eyes with the back of an oversized shirt sleeve. It’s El, who’s brow is furrowed with a look that could be mistaken for intense concentration. It’s El, who doesn’t even hesitate to pull Will into her arms when he starts to openly weep.

It feels like they spend an age hugging on his doorstep, arms wrapped firmly around his back, head buried into her shoulder. After a minute or a millennia, she gently tugs him inside and escorts him to the bathroom. He’s never seen her house properly before, he realises as she hangs a towel round his shoulders and uses another to dab at his face. Just another thing he doesn’t know about the girl who has nothing to hide.

He’s still crying, tears undoing any attempt El makes to dry his face.

“I should have something that will fit you,” she’s murmuring as she leads him into her bedroom. It’s a girl’s room through and through, with a bunny rabbit duvet and a hoard of stuffed animals crowding her desk. He doesn’t know what he was expecting.

She’s so careful as she hands him a stack of folded clothes, and he has to try not to cry harder because she’s being so nice to him. He doesn’t deserve this. He’ll never deserve this.

He gets changed in the bathroom. She’s right, the clothes do fit. If anything they hang way too loose on his body. He’s brittle, all bones and sharp angles. Easy to snap. He hides it all under the soft sweatshirt in his hands.

El is waiting for him, in her room. She’s sat cross-legged, facing a space that is, as of yet, unoccupied.

He falls into it naturally, as though it’s default. She beams at him when he does and he can feel something inside of him cracking.

She grabs at the hand resting on his lap. Squeezes it, tight. “Will,” she starts, cautiously, “you can tell me. You can tell me anything you need to. I’ll just sit here and… listen.”

So he tells her it all. Not because he’s scared someone else will tell her first. Not because he wants to push her away.

But because she deserves to know. Because she has kind eyes and warm hands and she always tells Will everything. Because he’ll burst at the seams if he doesn’t.

So he tells her.

He tells her how middle school was hell, but how he had Dustin and Lucas and Mike by his side. About how they made ‘fairy’ and ‘queer’ tolerable. How they would always scoop themselves up after each jibe and how each one brought them closer together. They were friends, but they were more than that. They were each other’s bodyguards, part of an intrinsically layered family. They had it each other’s backs. It felt good.

He tells her how he was always the smallest of the group. If they wanted to get rid of the weakest link, that would be him. But, for some reason he never knew, they didn’t. They certainly made their lives harder with him in their midst, but if he ever brought up how he was different, Dustin would point out how they were all different until Will smiled and reluctantly accepted that they wanted him around.

Elementary school was easy. Fun, even. No one minded if they played Star Wars or secluded themselves. No one cared when Lucas would blow milk out his nose from laughing too hard. No one cared when Mike and Will would hug for a little too long. Or when their hands would stay interlocked on the swings. Or when Will would flush a deep pink when Dustin mentioned any of that.

Middle school, however, was a whole different ball game. The nasty kids from their former years just became bigger, and uglier, and a whole lot louder. They still didn’t care about the party, not at first. There were kids easier to pick on. But those kids adapted, or gave way, joining new groups or moving schools.

Which just left Will. He was still small, even then, with a head too big for his shoulders and a happiness that couldn’t be squashed. He was an idiot, he tells El through snot and tears. Stupid and naïve and too trusting.

Middle school was scary, and bullies were mean, but at least he could still hold Mike’s hand.

He doesn’t know when it all started, not even now, looking back on it. It’s a blurry picture in his mind. At the time, it felt like the torture lasted for years. Looking back on it, it was probably only a few weeks at best.

They developed a system, and who was Will to argue with their well-defined schedule? So it became a routine. Avoid them in school. Try to pretend like nothing was wrong with Lucas, Dustin and Mike. Let them beat the shit out of him after school.

It was a deal. They could draw whatever blood they liked, so long as it remained between them, Will and the concrete near the bins.

Jonathan noticed first. He had tried to talk to Will about it, but Will hadn’t talked back. That was the first time. The first time he kept a secret from his brother. It certainly wasn’t the last.

The routine became well established. It hurt like hell, the blows to the back of his head, the scab they kept reopening on his knee, but it hurt a lot less when Mike smiled at him.

If it stayed at that, it could’ve been fine. But their words hurt more than their blows. He was haunted by the things they said, couldn’t escape from that. Not the “fags” or the “queers”. He heard them too much to really be bothered anymore. But he was the runt, and they reminded him of that. Once, one of them had mused that maybe Mike would be better off without him. That he would be better off without Will. That they should just kill him and toss him in the dumpster.

It stung because it was true and he knew it. Will had run home that day and cried into his pillow. It was the beginning of the end.

The words and the blows and the smiles from Mike built like water in his lungs. An unbearable pressure, pushing down on his chest.

There’s a lot in between that he doesn’t tell her. The food and the fear. The time he had jumped out of the car while his mom was driving. The trips to the doctors and the hallucinations. Those things belong to him and him alone. He never even told Mike, when it was all happening.

He didn’t tell Mike anything. Kept the smile in place until it hurt too much. Kept the words inside, until he snapped.

He was stood at his lockers when it happened. The hand on his shoulder felt heavy and foreign, so he took a chance and swung, throwing his full weight into it.

It was Mike who had staggered back. Mike who had clutched at his bleeding nose. He was smiling still, wincing through the pain, more confused than anything.

Will could’ve stopped. Could’ve told Will everything. Apologised for the nose and the flinching and being weird. Taken the taller boys hand in his and squeezed tight.

Instead he had grabbed Mike’s collar and pulled him to the ground. Delivered blow after blow into his face, his torso, until Mike was just a bloody mess underneath him.

He doesn’t know why. Still, after all this time. It just felt like something inside him snapping. Something inside him destroying Mike and everything they could’ve been.

It was Dustin who had hauled him off Mike. Will had thrashed in his arms until he’d freed himself. Then he’d barrelled out the doors before he could be excluded and ran all the way home.

The blows stopped coming after that. Maybe it wasn’t fun anymore. Maybe they liked to beat up something with a bit of life. That wasn’t Will anymore. When he came back to school all those months later he was nothing more than a shell. But that was good, because it meant he didn’t hurt so bad anymore.

El doesn’t say anything. She just folds her legs into her body and listens, chin resting on her knees. She doesn’t react, doesn’t flinch, doesn’t scream at Will to get out of her house. She just listens.

And Will, for his part, cries. He doesn’t remember starting, but then he can’t stop and he’s sobbing and sobbing. He didn’t think he had any tears left to cry about this anymore. He was wrong.

“I’m the monster,” he hiccups through tears. “I’m the freak that tore us apart. Not anyone else. Me.”

He barely registers the sound of the bed springs as El climbs off. He’s too wrapped up in his own misery. But then he feels a weight drape across his back and arms encircle him and it’s all so warm.

El is hugging him. He can’t remember the last time anyone hugged him. Not like this. It just makes him cry harder.

“It’s not your fault, Will.”

He wants to protest because yes, yes it is. He opens his mouth but all that comes out is an avalanche of sobs that wrack his body.

“It’s not your fault,” she repeats, tone certain. “You were just scared. It’s not your fault, Will.”

She sounds so sure of himself. But Will is pretty sure that punching Mike Wheeler so hard his nose bled is his fault. So was calling them all ‘queers’ as he struggled away from Dustin’s grip. So was telling Lucas to stay the hell away from him. So was slamming the door in Dustin’s face. So was skipping two solid months of school. So was-

He could think of more, but El is pulling back and pressing their foreheads together, and it’s so grounding that he loses his train of thought.

“No one hates you, Will.”

Yes, they do.

Yes, they do.

“Yes, they do.”

She shakes her head, lips pressed together. “No, they don’t. I don’t think they ever did.”

“Then why did they push me away?” His tone is small. Small and mournful.

El laughs at that. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe you were the one to do the pushing?”

Will frowns. That can’t be true. They had to be the ones wanting to get rid of him, because he’s shitty and useless and so, so wrong. His friends were the best thing to ever happen to him. Why would he push them away?

But he was so scared. So scared that they see how wrong Will is. So scared he’d drain them, just like he drained his dad so much that he had to leave. So scared that he didn’t deserve friends.

And then he was so angry. So angry that Mike had just taken the punches and not hit him back like he’d wanted. Because if Mike had hit him back, then they were even. If Mike hated him, Will could live with that.

If Mike hated Will, then maybe Will wouldn’t love him so much.

The thought hits him like a bus and he can’t breathe. But El is still there, her eyes burning into his, as Will realises just how much he had wanted to be alone.

He’s laughing through the pain. El is smiling too. It’s a confusing smile, half-sad, half-happy, but it’s a smile and it’s all Will needs.

* * *

Afterwards they’re lying on El’s bed, discarded pizza box lying between them. El is sprawled on her stomach, flicking through a Cosmo, whilst Will stares at her ceiling. It’s decorated with neon stars, arranged into the constellations. For the first time since middle school, Will realises he can breathe again. Not just shallow breathes, but deep lung-fulls of air. It’s a weird sensation and it makes him feel a little dizzy.

El pauses mid page turn and looks up at him. “You know; I think it’s about time people in this town started talking to each other.”

Will nods and rolls onto his side with a groan. “I don’t know where to start.”

“Maybe with a sorry?”

“For what? There’s too much to apologise for.”

“Then just apologise for the party,” El suggests with a shrug. “It’s worth a start.”

Will hums in agreement because, yeah, it’s a start.

Lucas will accept. He always would have, and if the last few months have taught Will anything, it’s that Lucas really hasn’t changed that much.

Dustin is an enigma, but he’s also kind and soft and Will can’t picture him holding a grudge.

He’s going to have hell to pay with Max. But while she may be severe, harsh and fucking hot-headed, she’s also an optimist in the best of ways. And she always saw the best in Will.

Then there’s Mike. The picture of Mike in his mind is always flickering;

Seven years old, holding Will’s hand on the swings.

Twelve years old, face stained red, crumpled on the floor.

Mike, running track.

Mike, watching El dance.

Mike, cornering Will at the lockers.

But now he sees Mike at lunch, passing a note down to El. Laughing with Lucas. Smiling at Will.

So yeah, maybe someday, Mike will accept his apology too.

It’s a start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well!! That's it guys!! The end of the story!! It was a real rollercoaster writing this, but mostly I had a great time.
> 
> I hope the ending is satisfying in tieing up all the loose ends and concluding this story. Please let me know what you think!!
> 
> A sequel idea is already in the work, but I may take a break before launching into any big projects again. But, I promise you, I do want to write more of this story, so I'm already drawing up some ideas.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!! It really warms my heart to know people care about me and my silly writing!!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading!! This idea came to me last night and I decided it would be a good way to challenge my writing style!! I do have a Stranger Things series, inspired more directly by the show, which you can check out on my page!!
> 
> All the party members will be making appearances, especially Dustin who is my favourite character to write in this fic. Also, it's my first time writing a slowly unraveling plot, as I normally do character studies, but I really enjoyed writing this!!
> 
> The title is taken from My Mirror Speaks by Death Cab For Cutie.


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